


A Continuing Conversation

by Buukkin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcoholism, And Motivations, And emotional, Angst, Bottom Snape, Bottom! Snape, But it gets there, Consent is just not a thing even for the fucks you're supposed to root for, Everyone is abused, It doesn't start out Bottom Snape, M/M, Problematic Emotions, Rape, So very problematic, Underage - Freeform, aaaaaangst, dub-con, non-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-05-17 23:19:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14841125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buukkin/pseuds/Buukkin
Summary: Harry Potter is back at Hogwarts after the war. He's grown up a bit, and he has some very pressing questions for his former Potions Professor. When the war ended, it abruptly cut off the story they had started together.Now he's back, with an invitation to take up The Cursed Position, and to retrieve the memories of what happened him in his brief but fateful capture by Voldemort's forces. Snape has been shoving the memories down, trying to move on with his life, but old wounds can't heal if they're left to fester and The Boy Who Lived can't live his life not knowing everything that happened between them, even if he's got to ignore Snape's wishes to do so.He trusted Snape, and maybe even loved him, but Snape knows there's no forgiveness for his betrayal in Malfoy Manor that night.





	1. Reintroduction

**Author's Note:**

> CW TW WARNING For Rape, Non-con, Torture, Dub-con, and general glorification of abuse.
> 
> I'm not just going to torture them endlessly, I'm not into that, but TRAUMA.
> 
> Not my characters, universe, or IP.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

Continuing Conversation

 

Reintroduction

                Those damn green eyes. He had hoped to never be on the receiving end of those bright emerald eyes ever again. But here they were, with all the accompanying pieces. A petite frame, tousled hair, those damn sharp features so like his father when he was young but now whittled with stress, a year older than his father’s face ever got.

                “Mr. Potter.” Severus set down his quill and looked up, however barely, at the young wizard standing before him, “What brings you to my office this evening?”

                That lightning bolt scar flashed at him through black bangs somehow already starting to be flecked with a few glinting strands of white. Severus felt guilty, like he shouldn’t be allowed to look at it. It was a symbol, and he was one of the few free men who wore it’s antithesis on his forearm, “Hello, Professor. Mind if I sit?” the gall of this child.

                Severus gestured courteously to the seat in front of his desk, “You may want to switch out the chair with a stool from the counter. This one is a bit short.”

                “Like you need to be putting first years in a low chair to loom?” Potter let a small smirk crawl onto his face, sinking into the stooped seat anyway, “Can’t see how a few inches of the stool would help, you’re almost a foot taller than me.”

                “An exaggeration.” Not so much of an exaggeration. He felt like he was looming over a third-year from behind his desk in his wing-backed chair. The brat could have had the decency to grow a little more. “How may I help you this evening, Mr. Potter? Are you here in your official Auror capacities?”

                Potter tilted his head, “What would I…” he shut himself down, “No. I’ve actually retired.”

                “Retirement? What sort of pension will the ministry pay for your dedicated… Three years of service?” Severus raised a brow and did his best approximation of not sneering.

                “I don’t know what else to say.” Harry shrugged, “I’m not going back to the ministry. They didn’t sack me. We’ve parted amiably. I don’t feel like I quit. I just have to move on.”

                “That is exactly quitting, Potter. And I fail to see yet how I can help you with your lack of perseverance.” Severus capped his inkwell and finally set down his quill. “I have things to do.  I need you to get to the point.”

                Potter chuckled, “Shite I can’t believe you’ve gotten this far without snapping or sneering at me,” he said it like a compliment, “Peacetime suits you.”

                Severus would not be goaded, “Admittedly I now sometimes end my days with patience to spare,” That got another chuckle from the Boy Who Lived, Snape looked at him sharply, “But this is not one of those days. What do you want?”

                “I want to work at Hogwarts.”

                That stilled Severus with a body and soul sense of… Hesitation? Fear? Shame?

                The spy had no idea what to say next. His face didn’t falter, expression trained blank if not slightly annoyed, “The cursed position?”

                “Sounds perfect for me, yeah?” Potter was showing off his Gryffindor bravado, “Who better to laugh at one of Voldemort’s old curses? And if I can’t, well…” He paused and glanced down at his lap before catching himself and meeting the potion master’s eyes again, “It’ll be good to get back for a little while, either way.”

                Severus stayed silent. This damn boy. Severus went his days from task to task, simply living, and some days he managed to go the whole day without thinking of what happened those years ago. He wanted a life free of the horrors of the war, of his past, of this damn _boy_. But apparently the universe had noticed that he didn’t deserve any of the pardon it had given him.

                Potter cleared his throat, “I want to make sure that it’s okay with you.”

                “I never really wanted the position.” Snape said automatically, like he had when reapplying for the Potions position after the war with McGonagall, “It was always The Dark Lord that wanted me looking out for new talent. I’m a potion’s Master.”

                “I figured that. I meant more…” Potter stumbled to a halt, Severus watched a small battle play out with the boy’s eyes and objects around the room he felt were easier to look at than his much-loathed potions master, “We never talked. About what happened.”

                “Things happen in war.” Severus stated. Really? You sod that’s all you can muster for him? Even now, I fear reprisal so much I can’t even apologize. To do so would admit guilt. And I suppose my soul can’t handle an ounce more of that. The potion master’s tongue felt like lead in his mouth. He absentmindedly hoped the spy in him was keeping his face together.

                “I’ve been seeing people. About it. About all of it. Muggle mind-healers-”

                “I was raised by a muggle with a television in our sitting room I know what a Psychiatrist is, Potter.” It was so easy to snap and admonish. Potter had him reverted to his cruel, defensive state.

                “Oh of course. I knew that. I forget how much I know about you, sometimes.” He snapped his eyes up, “Was it all my mother? Her eyes you wanted to watch you die? Or was there something for me in there, too?”

                That sucked the air from Severus’s lungs. His last words to Potter. What he thought were going to be his last words ever. “Get it all out.” Was all he managed to grit through his teeth. He was only going to have this conversation once.

                “You had a bezoar in your robes. You _told_ us to do that. I even knew where to fucking find yours-”

                “Language.” Snape muttered absentmindedly, leaning back and bringing his interlaced fingers up to his chin, hiding part of his face; a clear defensive move. Losing control of this conversation and simply enduring it. He didn’t need to have control and power here. Potter wasn’t searching him for weaknesses, he was just here as a force of nature come to blow his course.

                “-Because you had showed us! As kids! And closing a wound? A few wounds? You had strength left, you were Occluding you used Legilimecy and you can cast a healing charm with the best of them but you didn’t. Instead you gave me a headfull of memories you should have known I couldn’t handle and you made me watch you _die_.”  The young wizard was panting, his green eyes shown through his glasses glowing and wet.

                Severus loosened the tension from his hands by steepling the fingers in front of his face. He looked down at them. Up at Potter. He made his own wandering tour of the room with his gaze. “Do you want me to retire my position so you can take up the Dark Arts post?”

                “I want you to have this conversation with me.” Potter snapped back, “You don’t get to just run off this time. You can’t just die your way out of this!”

                “Just as well I don’t plan on dying soon.” Not that at this exact moment life seemed any more appealing than a swift death. Severus took up the fast pace of Potter’s interrogation, maybe if he just piled on false bravado this would happen and he wouldn’t self-immolate before he was on the other side of it, “When I think of the things that I did. When I revisit these memories and have these _conversations_ with myself I remember how badly I did want to die then.”

                “We all wanted to die.” Hissed Potter, “Dumbledore came and met me in the afterlife to tell me I had to go back. I was fucking ready to die too, but I didn’t _embrace_ it.”

                “What do you want to hear? I won’t sit here and talk circles with you. I had nothing to live for and too many sins to atone for and death seemed simple and clean and the only possible way to atone for what I had done to you, and Lily, and bloody everyone. But I’m here now and I have nothing left for you, or _bloody anyone_.” Severus was exhausted. The one short outburst had drained him. He had skipped lunch and this delightful engagement would probably take him through dinner. But he owed the boy this. If Potter wanted to get in a few lashes, he could.  Severus had been healing these last few years, he could take one more night of horrors. Throw it on the pile with the others.

                A small golden-haired head poked in, “Professor Snape I’m here f-”

                “Detentions cancelled tonight,” Severus snapped at the second-year Collins, “Please gratefully take your leave.”

                The head gladly disappeared. Oh the rumors that would buzz around. Harry Potter yelling in the dungeon with the crotchety old potion’s professor.

                “Can we go to your rooms?” Potter asked, glancing back at the closed door.

                “Must we?” Severus did not say it as a question. “Is there much more of this?”

                Harry glared through his glasses, “Quite.”

 

                Luckily Severus had an imposing wingback in his sitting room as well, and Scotch. “Something to drink, Potter?” he said absentmindedly as he poured himself three fingers oh hell a whole glass of Scotch.

                “No.” Potter said, “Must you?”

                “Quite.” Severus seethed, taking an indulgent draught.

                “I forgive you.” Potter said, delivering the words like a punch. A stunned solid moment passed. Severus took another sip to settle his punch-drunk vision.

                “That doesn’t matter.” Severus muttered, settling into his velveteen armchair. Potter hadn’t seated himself yet, and Severus didn’t appreciate being on this side of a _loom_. He took another sip of Scotch. “It’s nothing you haven’t said before.”

                “I meant it then.”

                “And I was eager to die none the less. Apparently your forgiveness doesn’t have the weight you must assume it does.” Severus stretched his neck, feeling the warm buzz of the alcohol starting to work on his knotted spine.

                Potter crouched down on the floor in front of Severus, “Look at me.”

                “Absolutely not.” Severus petulantly turned his head, bringing his glass shakily to his lips again.

                Potter reached up and wrestled the half- full glass from Severus’s fingers, and quickly downed it in two gulps. He made a horrible face and gasped, before shaking his head clear and returning to glare at Severus, “Look. At me.”

                Severus hadn’t cried since the war was over. He wasn’t about to start now, but if he was going  to pick up the habit again this would have been an opportune time.

                “ _Legilimens_.”

 

                Potter had been working on this. Severus blearily wondered with whom. He didn’t bother with his defensive walls. His mind was no longer an impenetrable fortress. He was human, flesh and blood and intrusive thoughts just like everyone else these days. Closing himself off as he had during his spy days had caused him to court madness. Clearly. In post-war times he’d felt his sanity crumbling and they’d had to go.

                Memories were being spun through, he could have thrown up distractors, could have hidden or obscured, but they both knew where they were heading. There was no running from it.

                “It’s here. You didn’t throw it in a pensieve.”

                They were in that room again. The Dark Lord’s base in Malfoy manor, where they had tortured Potter, and Lestrange had her way with Hermione, “If I had then it could be found. A mind is always the best place to lock something away.”

                Hermione had gotten away. Clever witch. But it would be nine hours before Dumbledore’s Army would stagger back for the rescue of the young Harry Potter.

                Potter was never in danger of dying. The Dark Lord wasn’t willing to give up that piece of his soul just yet. But no one in this blasted memory knew that. The young body was dragged to the center of the ballroom. The dark lord looked down gleefully from his makeshift throne.

                “Potter. I don’t want to watch this.” Severus said dully. His life was always going to go back to a few searing, white-hot points of pain. Holding Lily’s body. Watching Dumbledore fall. This. These were the moments he could never atone for. The former two were easy to forget, for they wouldn’t be able to torment him again in the flesh, but with this he had a living victim.

                Harry, no-Potter, was standing right next to him, at his shoulder, watching the Death Eaters being summoned around the seventeen year old version of himself crumpled on the floor in front of the Dark Lord.          

                “Your memory is much better than mine.” Potter commented, sounding unaffected. “Mine’s all mashed up because of the Cruciatus. Even after I talked through it and tried reliving it… There are parts damaged by magic I’ll never retrieve.”

                “I could have given you the memory. I don’t want to be here.” Severus was begging. This was how Severus begged.

                Harry’s screams started ringing around them. The horrible sound had Severus sweating, shaking. He felt ill. He glanced at his former self in the crowd, stone faced and unmoving. How had he ever conjured that strength?

                “We can speed this up, I think.” Harry said mildly, twisting Severus’s mind to simply glance through the hours of endless jeers and curses and hexes, “They’re not very creative in the beginning.”

                Eventually they had to stop torturing him with magic. He couldn’t die. Severus stood by, still like a statue while they did. Face blank. Harry’s limp body was dragged away down a hall.

                “Ssseverus.”  The Dark Lord spoke, “You seem… Stark.”

                Severus watched himself, merlin he looked older then than he did now, raise his head and smirk, “I don’t think he’s even recognized me, My Lord. I’ve been watching the whole time.”

                Voldemort stood and walked towards him, the other Death Eaters were disapparating, “And did I tell you to stay unnoticed?”

                “Apologies, My Lord.” Severus bowed deeply, “I had assumed you wanted me to keep my post at Hogwarts. I thought it best the boy not recognize me.”

                “So you think he’ll escape.” Voldemort hissed, “Planning to help him, are you?”

                Severus looked legitimately shocked. Bravo. “My Lord.. Of course not. We let the mudblooded girl go, I just assumed we’d simply hobble the Potter boy and have him run off as well. I shouldn’t presume to know your plans. I can’t comprehend, My Lord.”

                “Go with them.” The Dark Lord drawled, “Finish off whatever is left sane in that Potter boy, he won’t be leaving.”

                “Please Potter. Please don’t. I’ll give you everything. I’ll give you the whole memory I’ll omit nothing I can’t do this again.” Severus could apparently beg very well. He hadn’t begged for Lily’s life, he hadn’t begged Dumbledore not issue his final bidding, but he was willing to try it now. His memory-form was obediently bowing and taking off down the hall.

                Potter’s face wasn’t tortured, he seemed calm, if not a little serene. So different from the little limp form that had been dragged down the hall, “It’s just a memory, Severus. Everything that happens here… These are things that happened. Not showing them doesn’t erase them. Remembering doesn’t make them happen again.”

                The Boy Who Lived’s image moved in a flash, latching their hands together with a crack. Severus looked down at his hand, feeling a searing pain in the palm. Potter let go in an instant, leaving Severus with a glowing red mark on his hand, “A… An entrapment seal?”

                “More like a save point.” Potter must have moved his body, his magic outside of this memory, this was a real mark he had cut in Severus’s flesh. This was dark magic. The glowing red circle, those symbols, “We’re going to get through this, Severus. This seal will take me back here. To this point. If you throw me out, I can activate it and we’ll be right back here. If you tell me you really need out, I’ll alter it to take us back to wherever we left off. But I need to know.”

                “I’ll tell you.” The words spilled out of Severus’s mouth quickly, “I’ll tell you anything you want to know about this night please, Potter.”

                “You’ll call me Harry.” Harry said sternly, Severus felt the red save point on his hand glow, rewriting him, making Harry’s command true.

                “You’ve gone mad…” Severus whispered, they were still being pulled along, dragged to that room.

                “I don’t think I have, but it would be understandable, Merlin.” Harry looked in the room, and for the first moment he hesitated, “I can’t blame you for not wanting to do this again, Severus. It doesn’t make you a coward.”

                No. This didn’t make him a coward. But what he had done made him a monster. “You have the save point.” Severus put a hand on Harry’s shoulder, stopping him from entering the room, “We will do this. But please Harry. I need time to prepare. I can’t alter the memory with this magic in my system. We can do this tomorrow.”

                Harry met his eyes, and Severus was almost nauseated to find only kindness there, understanding. That feeling intensified as the world spun around and they landed smack dab right where they had been in Severus’s chambers. Like nothing had happened.

                Severus felt a sticky warm sensation on his right hand. It was bleeding, seeping into his pants and the armchair. He turned his palm up to look at the save point. “Can it be healed with magic?” He asked, little fight left in his voice.

                Harry placed his hand over Severus’s, and there was a bright red flash. When the spots faded from Severus’s vision he saw the bloody cut-open wound replaced with a vivid crimson tattoo.

                Harry stood up, went to the cabinet where he had seen Severus get his scotch before, and poured two fingers into the glass again. Returning, he placed it into Severus’s left hand, “You are left handed, if I remember? I didn’t want to take your wand hand out of commission, it’ll be sore for a few days.”

                “A few…” Severus felt drained. He took a sip of his scotch. “How long exactly is this supposed to last?”

                Harry shrugged, “We’ll talk about it all once we’ve made it through the memory. Tomorrow is Saturday, so I’ll be over after breakfast, yeah?”

                “Is there any other option for me except to acquiesce?” Severus was staring at the liquid at the bottom of his glass.

                “No.” Harry gave a lopsided smile, “I’ll see you around ten.”

Severus finished that glass. And then he had another. His long form listed as he walked over for his next. It seemed a good idea to take the bottle with him.

               

 

                His head was containing a horrific explosion. Everything in his stomach wanted to get out. His joints ached. His hands trembled. He looked up into Harry’s eyes, “What are you do-” he cut himself off. Lurching, Severus dashed to the loo.

                Severus had never been all that terrible at throwing up, actually. Numbing his nerves and pain all through the war, and before when he was a teen… He really was an expert at starting his day with a wretching cleanse and carrying on.

                It was morning already. He’d wasted a night of preparation in drink. Harry was back to rifle through his mind again. He never dreamt when he drank, so that couldn’t have been a dream. Also… He glanced at his right palm. Blasted boy. It was really sore, but the wound was still closed.

                He stood from his knees and flushed the toilet. Not a lot solid had come up, he really did need to eat something.  Flipping the mirror open, he ghosted a hand over a few of the meticulously labeled bottles before finding his patented morning after draught. A quick swig and his headache dulled, his body became a suitable place to carry a soul.

                He shut the mirror and grabbed his toothbrush, glaring at himself in the mirror as he brushed. Goddamn it, Severus. You should have left the damn country.

                Harry had made himself comfortable on the couch before Severus returned, washed up as best as he could manage and in a new shirt, cloak gone and not replaced, “Did you eat?”

                Severus snorted, “I swear… No one has ever actually wondered that question as they asked it of me. When would I have eaten? And it’s a moot point, I won’t be able to get anything down before we do this.”

                Harry looked down and slowly closed his book, “I’m sorry it’s like this. You have to understand,” he gulped, “I was different after that night. That night changed me. And I can’t really remember it. Between the torture and the obliviation, I was out of ideas.”

                Severus went back to sit in his wingback, his stomach felt as if it was tumbling globs of painful molten rock. His head still throbbed too much to yell at the boy. And everything he would say was too easily sliced down. Well why didn’t you ask, Potter? The boy had sent him countless letters, thoroughly routed straight to the fire. But he needed to ask something. He desperately needed to buy time, “Was the entire night last night about getting to this memory? Are you even taking a post at Hogwarts?”

                Harry looked back down at his hands, “I wasn’t ever going to do this to you. I had fully talked myself out of it. You clearly didn’t want to talk about it and I… I am okay. I’m doing okay. I didn’t think I needed to get into it. So it wasn’t intentional. I just wanted to reconnect. And ask about the position. See if it would be weird. Then things got out of hand I suppose.”

                “I’ll say,” Severus looked at the bright red mark on his palm, “This is quite a beautiful design, P-Harry.” He scowled, his mouth couldn’t say Potter’s surname, “I will do my best but you must _not_ use this seal to control my speech.”

                “Just call me Harry.” The boy muttered quietly, not meeting his eyes, “And I found it while I was an Auror. Hermione did. This way Ron and I could save ourselves outside of a bust and if things went pear shaped I could just activate the seal and we’d get another shot at it.”

                “So you marked the Weasley boy as well,” Severus said, “Or did he mark you?”

                Harry shook his head, “No need. And I’m not entirely sure he could have mustered it. He can get a bit squeamish about blood. He didn’t look when I did it to him. Made me do it on the back of his calf where he couldn’t see it. Bloody inconvenient to redraw save points from., having to roll up his pant leg all the time…” Harry chuckled.

                “I’m surprised that rule-following little witch would have endorsed such a dark blood magic.” Severus remarked, his eyes wandering around to try to sort out what ever did happen to that bottle of scotch he had nursed last night, not returned to it’s cabinet.

                “Hermione breaks rules with the best of them. And Ron thinks I’m trustworthy. I have no power over the mark that I don’t intentionally exert.”

                “You’ve made me a version of myself that calls you Harry.” Snape seethed, “I would like not to be. Remove that feature.”

                Harry didn’t look away this time. The young man simply studied him for a silent moment, “At the end.”

                Severus wanted to slap that contemplative expression right off his bloody face, “Then let’s get to it _Harry_.”

                Harry moved off the couch and got to his knees in front of Severus, looking up made those green eyes practically orbital, “ _Legilimens_ ”

 

 

                “S-snape!” Harry’s cry came from the young form in the room. He was so bloodied and bruised and beaten, Severus found himself steeling a glance at the Harry next to him just to reassure himself that this nightmare was a temporary state.

                “Mister Potter.” Severus’s younger self billowed to a wardrobe against the wall and removed his cloak. “This’ll be quite the detention to remember,” That got a sick chortle out of Yuelle and Craig, the two death eaters that had dragged him in here, this Witch and Wizard always managed to find themselves in more sadistic circumstances, “Where did Lucius get to?”

                “Went out for materials. He thought he’d have some things the young Boy Who Lived For A Bit might like in another wing.” The witch Yuelle said with a wide smirk.

                “Ah. Then I suppose I get first stab.” Memory-Severus grinned, eyes raking over the boy on the floor. This was a bedroom with no bed, the former four-poster masterpiece Severus was sure had been there had been transfigured into a sawhorse in the center of the room, and a rack next to it. “That’ll do nicely.”

                He hadn’t thought this performance had been convincing, at the time. He had felt his stomach rolling circles in his belly, he had felt weak and lightheaded, he felt like the sight of his hands shaking must have been visible from across the room.

                No. Watching himself now he could see he played the part perfectly.

                “You’re an amazing actor.” Harry commented, as Memory-Snape lifted the head of the frail Harry that existed here and looked him over, “I remember feeling your hands shake. I remember your breath was a bit ragged. I remember thinking you’d have to pull yourself together.”

                “My acting skills are apparently only effective at a distance.” Severus said dryly.

                “It’s not as bad as I remember.” Harry went over to himself under a crouched Snape, who was now casting healing spells for all his open wounds, commenting on how they’d need all the time they could get with such a treat. “I remember thinking you were saving my life with these healing spells. Bit dramatic. I’m not that beat up.”

                Severus scoffed, “That’s your definition of something to be shaken off?”

                “I didn’t say that… But you don’t understand.” Harry reached down to himself, almost comforting, “I thought I was being taken to this room to be die. I thought I was as good as a corpse already and was being disposed of.”

                “Some hexes and cuts.” Severus agreed, “But you can’t see the Cruciatus. And it must have been used on you for over an hour, in fits and starts. The pain has settled into your bones. It’s shaken your mind. You’re closer to death than you look.”

                “Aaaah S-snape, please no stop-aargh” the long fingers had gone to the button on the front of the young wizard’s trousers, while the other twisted a nipple through the tatters of his shirt.

                “Oh come now, it’s _Professor_ Snape.” The potions master sneered, tearing off what was left of his shirt and crawling on top of him, “Your greasy old potions professor is going to fuck you, little Potter. You’re going to be tied down and helpless. And your ass is going to be torn to shreds.” His voice was so deep, deeper than when he wasn’t playing a part, “Craig, Yuelle,”

                “Yes, Snape?” the man who answered was blonde and thick-bodied, “You need something?”

                “Among my many deviancies, I’m afraid I could not find exhibitionism.” Snape drawled. “Give me twenty minutes alone with the brat to get things going and I’ll make you both a draught of No-see-me to get you away from Aurors next time we’re out for a bit of fun.”

                “Heh. Whatever you say, Snape.” The witch standing next to him answered, “Like we wanted to see your bony arse anyway. We’ll go grab a smoke, you’ve got fifteen minutes then we _share_.”             

                They left, the door latched. Severus looked at the boy on the ground. “I’m just talking to you.” He undid his trousers, “But I have to look like… In case someone comes in.” His voice was so quiet and low it was barely a vibration.

                The ruined Harry found some more tears, his eyes had been wrung dry for the last hour or so. Snape settled over him, and Harry took the older man in wide arms and spread legs. They settled into an embrace passing itself for rape, and Harry let himself sob.

                “Potter you idiot. What the devil were you thinking…” Snape cupped the back of his head. The boy was still wearing pants. He grabbed his wand in his robes and spelled them off, earning a louder sob from the boy. At least they would sound the part to outsiders.

                “I-I’m sorry,” Harry blubbered, “Please don’t hurt me don’t let them hurt me I can’t take any more-”

                “Quiet, Potter.” Snape hissed, before his voice returned to it’s low vibratory rumble, “When they return I’ll excuse myself to clean up. I’ll get word to your friends. I’ve healed you. Your body is intact, and strong. You can handle whatever they do to you. The Cruciatus is making you fragile, but you mustn’t break.”

                Harry’s sobs had quieted, he was still beneath Severus on the hard marble floor, “I… So rape?”

                Severus exhaled loudly, “Yuelle, Craig and Malfoy are always here for this type of event. I have been sent specially by The Dark Lord to torment you. He sends in his sadists to break people. Others might rotate through. They won’t kill you. They won’t try to. You just have to make it until your friends can come for you.”

                Harry swallowed hard, his teeth were chattering as his base level of shock re-emerged from the lowered levels of panic “I don’t have my wand. I c-couldn’t muster a spell if I did. I need you to c-cast a r-relaxation spell and a l-lubrication ch-charm.” He was breathing harder now, “Fuck I don’t wanna cry again.”

                “You will.” Severus put his hand on his wand, giving Harry the requested charms.

                “A-about last night-” Harry started.

                “Now is not the time to talk about that.” Snape cut him off, “What we did last night and what’s happening here… They aren’t in the same class of action.”

                “I know. I w-want to make sure y-you know it.” Harry sobbed a bit at the end, “Fuck, don’t think you could m-manage a stiff dick right n-now, could you?”

                Snape rolled his eyes, “Can you?”

                Harry gave a shaky laugh that sounded more like a cry of fear, “W-well I’m buzzed out f-from the Cruciatus. I h-have an excuse.” He craned his face up to Snape’s, connecting their shaking lips for a soft, chaste kiss, “G-give me a few fingers then. You’ll have to t-transfigure some white fluid to f-fool them.”

                Somewhere along the line in the young Harry’s youth he had become… Ruthless. Exact. Pragmatic. Somehow Snape had missed it.

                Never had anything felt more wrong than picking up the boy and moving him over to a transfigured wooden sawhorse that must have at one point been a perfectly comfortable four-poster. Harry was shaky and Severus was worried he couldn’t stay on. He mumbled curses and the padding on the arms and legs and belly got softer so the boy’s bony elbows and knees could sink in a bit.

                “Tie me.” Harry whispered.

                Snape felt bile rise in his throat.

                “If you tie me maybe they’ll just leave me… I d-don’t have to see. I don’t like it w-when I’m on my back. It’s open and vulnerable. This… F-feels nice.” He was on all fours on the padded raised sawhorse. Snape could see how it did almost mirror a defensive position, save his naked ass in the air. He muttered another spell and black hemp ropes sprang around the boy’s arms and legs, fastening him to the device.

                “We don’t have long,” Snape said grimly.

                “I-I kn-know.” Potter’s jaw was still trembling. He was still shaking and twitching all over from the cruciatus. “They’ll come for me.”

                “They will.” Severus’s jaw locked, he resolved to make it true. He cast more lubrication on his hand, he slid a finger into the boy’s ass.

                Potter didn’t seem much phased by it, if anything his trembling lessened, “Th-that’s not so bad.”

                Seveus muttered another relaxation charm, a numbing charm, added another finger, “It doesn’t have to be,”

                Potter almost sighed, “Very… Centering.” He could still move his head if he desired, he glanced back at Snape, “Still no luck on a s-stiffie?”

                Snape shook his head, almost sadly, “If you desire me first I’d understand the sentiment. There are spells.”

                Harry thought a moment, only the sound of his teeth chattering and the slick working of Severus’s fingers in and out of him, “W-would you mind?”

                Snape couldn’t help but let out a derisive laugh, “For twenty years I’ve been far beyond what I would mind.” Another murmured charm, and he felt his cock harden in his trousers. He unbuttoned them and let it free, lining up against the Boy Who Lived’s slick hole, “Are you sure?”

                Harry looked relaxed, even with his tremors, “Y-yeah.”

                Severus pressed inside. He felt the charms working their magic, making Harry into a slick, inviting hole; the boy already felt fucked open. It had been a long time since Snape had put his cock anywhere warm and inviting and it felt beyond divine. In a few thrusts he felt the charm wear off as his cock stiffened on it’s own. He wondered if Harry’s relaxation charms were wearing off as his insides were worked open.

                For those blissful few minutes, Snape lost himself. Harry’s dark pucker swallowed him up gladly and he fucked him as gently as he could as possessiveness and passion took over. For a few blissful minutes the room didn’t feel so quiet, so cold, so still. In Harry there was warmth and comfort, and Snape let himself get lost in it for just a few minutes.

                Harry was panting now as Severus worked inside of him, the deep and even breaths had settled the tremors, the muscles that had been knotting and racked with spasms in his back now just buckled and swayed rhythmically with the cock thrusting into his ass. The boy turned his head, his glasses had been long gone under the leather sole of a cruel death eater, and those eyes looked so much bigger without them, peeking over his shoulder back at Severus, “C-come in me.”

                It danced off his lips, like petals falling. That soft, almost silent request hit Severus like a bellowed command.  The Spy’s stomach dropped, his eyes locked onto the sliver of emerald hinting over the boy’s tanned shoulder. He grabbed that shoulder in his pale, shaking hand. He shoved one last hasty thrust inside the boy, end emptied himself, groaning.

                He hadn’t seen it the first time, but a tear rolled from each eye as Harry turned away from him, filled with seed just as he had asked.

                Severus could see it now, though. Standing in front of the scene instead of inside of it. He glanced at the older, composed, and somehow still alive Harry he was standing next to, and his voice couldn’t work. He hadn’t thought the boy had cried. He had thought he’d given Harry what he wanted.

                Harry didn’t look at him, ignoring the question Severus was trying to ask with his gaze. And Severus didn’t have the strength to push it. Severus didn’t have it in him to open his mouth and broach this subject.

 What Severus could do, did do was hold out his hand, “Can this be enough, for this morning?”

                Harry looked down at the curse marked hand held out to him, the act of moving his eyes that quickly let a tear free to run down his cheek, “Sure.” He said, his voice a little hoarse.

                The twist was more nauseating this time as they reappeared in Severus’s sitting room, and Severus took the excuse to lurch to the loo once again. He didn’t need to see Harry’s tears again. He didn’t need to see any of this again. He rested is forehead on the lip of the toilet bowl. Disgust, self-loathing, a true and deep hatred and belief in his own _wrongness_ washed over him. Tight lips clenched and kept a dry sob down. He hadn’t thrown anything up this time, just dry heaves that had no reason to stop, no reason not to simply turn into wails.

                When he emerged, the boy was no longer in his sitting room, gone silently. He had left his silence in his wake.

                Severus’s eyes lingered down to the nearly depleted bottle of scotch lying on the floor in front of his armchair, only a few draughts left in it.

                He shook himself and banished the thought, finding the lid in the crease of his chair and stoppering the bottle. The two, maybe three swigs left in the bottle glinted at him, golden and menacing.  Later. The bottle found its way back to the drink cart in the corner of the room, by his reading desk and the shelves tightly stuffed with his favorite and most important books.

                There were things to do. Grading hadn’t been finished. He needed to make a trip to Diagon Alley for next week’s lesson ingredients, but before any of that could be accomplished he needed to bathe.

                He could do this. He could endure this probe and make it to the other side. And if he couldn’t… Well he would die. And that wasn’t so bad either.

~

 


	2. A Truce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little less heavy this chapter!
> 
> CW TW WARNING For Rape, substance abuse, Non-con, Torture, Dub-con, and general glorification of abuse.
> 
> I'm not just going to torture them endlessly, I'm not into that, but TRAUMA.
> 
> Not my characters, universe, or IP.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

                Snape had to get to the edge of the grounds to apparate, and it hadn’t occurred to him that he needed to be _sneaking._ As he was on his way, however, those bright emerald eyes caught sight of him once again.

                “Professor Snape.” Harry was by the carriages on the path out of the castle grounds, smoking a cigarette and placing a calm hand on the curved snout of a Thestral, “You look much better.”

                Severus nodded at him, looking at the beast that he was casually stroking, “They’re always finicky around me.”

                Harry took a long drag off his cigarette and then flicked it down, stepping on it and then muttering a banishment on the butt, “Magical creatures usually like me. There was one Basilisk that had my number but other than that,” He shot a smile at Severus, looking disheveled and handsome and older than his years. Not the boy from his memories. Not a man that he quite knew, yet, “Headed to Hogsmeade?”

                Severus shook his head, “Diagon Alley,”

                “Can I buy you lunch?” Harry asked casually, but made a gesture that Severus recognized. Harry had forgotten that he had thrown the cigarette out, and brought the hand it had been in to his face, out of presumably habit and wanting his hands to be doing something. There was only a short pause before he ran it through his hair instead. The old spy couldn’t simply just turn off. Finally some show of true anxiety from the boy.

                He thought about the request, and then pointedly glanced at the tattoo on his palm, “Why?”

                Harry shrugged, and Severus could see how desperately he still wanted to be holding his cigarette. A cigarette was a deceiver’s tool, it bought you time, it gave you a show to put on, it gave you distance from the situation. Nicotine was an addiction, sure, but greater the draw for Severus had been the draw of _time._ Those few seconds necessary to get your story straight, fire up your mind, get you through whatever you needed to see the other side of.

                Harry didn’t have his cigarette anymore. And the shrug was all he could produce. They stood in silence; Harry looking into Severus’s eyes, and Severus looking out at the horizon.

                “I need to eat.” Severus said finally, not taking his eyes off the mountains in the distance, “I’ll apparate to Diagon Alley from the High Street Cafe.”

                Harry nodded, “Carriage, or walk?”

                “The Thestrals are finicky around me.” Severus said again, still studying the horizon.

                “Ah.” Harry began to walk down the gravel path off the grounds, Severus followed like it hadn’t been his idea.

                It was almost surprising how comfortable their silence was as they walked. The only sound was the breeze in the leaves and the crunching gravel under their feet. It was a beautiful late summer day, Severus didn’t even have on his full cloak, just his white undershirt, cuffs rolled to just below the dark mark on his forearm. He wore a black button up vest and some slim legged slacks to attempt to still project professionalism even in the heat of September. Hogsmeade weekends would start soon, and then he would have to fully cloak up before heading out into the town just in case he came upon any students who felt seeing him in plainclothes made him seem more ‘accessible’.

                When he had first gotten out of the house to go to Hogwarts, he wore robes with relish. It felt like claiming his identity and saying fuck you to his father in one glorious action. And as a Death Eater he had dialed it up, ornate Victorian styles and buttons only manageable with magic so that he looked the perfect image of a Dark Wizard. Not even Lucius had outdressed Severus, he had padded his identity and offered himself the protection of outwardly being the perfect image of a pureblood wizard.

                He left his cloak and robes behind more and more in the years since the war. They were no longer projection and protection. They were still sometimes useful. If he was teaching classes he wore them to store all the shrunken objects he needed to carry. When the cold, damp winter set in he’d wear his thickest and finest robes, and flourish them proudly.

                But in the heat of the late summer, with his ingredients bag hanging at his hip, he felt simply human. Maybe he’d even go into muggle London for a few things.

                It had been a hard won comfort. One it didn’t seem Harry had ever wrestled with. He glanced at the b… at Harry. His hair was doing a rather unattractively symmetrical swoop today, and he had stuck up the front by running his hands through it. But the anxious hands were calm now, slung into the pockets of low-riding khaki’s. He was wearing a tank top under a very thin sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled, a  trendy look that would have been unthinkably alien to school-aged Harry.

                The shrugged tank had a pocket with a golden snitch embroidered on it. Oh Merlin’s beard.

                He must have made a noise of derision because Harry looked back at him and caught his eyes looking at the pocket, “Hey I _did that,_ don’t make fun of me. Hermione read this article on using handcrafts as meditation. Ron is actually a fantastic knitter, so it was no fun to try that with him. We decided we’d try out embroidery,” He glanced down at the little snitch, “I had to spell so much blood out of this thing from pricking my fingers. And I didn’t think to take the pocket off the shirt first so it actually sewed the pocket shut.” He wiggled the lip of the pocket to show how it tugged the shirt along with it.

                Severus almost cracked a smile watching Harry look down and admire his handiwork, but instead of something so over-the-top as a grin he said, “It adds a flair of personality to the ensemble.”

                Harry blinked at him, “Th…anks.” And he looked away with a smile.

                Clouds rolled slowly overhead, dappling the hillsides in patterns of light and dark.

                The comfortable silence took them all the way to the High Street Café, “I’ve never been here,” Harry commented.

                “Exceptional lunch fare,” Severus said, opening the door and holding it for Harry, ushering the younger man inside.

                A sign said to seat themselves, and Severus’s favorite seat by the storefront’s bay windows overlooking the street was available, as it was just after an average lunch time and the tables were over half empty. One of the side panels in the window was even cracked to let the breeze in. He gestured towards the clear choice in seating and the younger man took the hint.

                Seating themselves in the slightly cramped window outlet, Severus finally felt himself relax. The fresh air of the walk had been something he lacked after all this emotion and alcohol binging. He hadn’t drank like that since the war, putting a tight clamp on the habit after he realized how compelled he felt even when there was nothing left to fear or run from.

                His father had been a drunk, and a mean one. He didn’t let himself abstain entirely, that would have almost been too easy. It was his job to show restraint, and he’d let Harry see him fail in that regard more times than he was comfortable with.

                “What’s good here?” Harry said, picking up and looking at the paper menu on the table.

                “I enjoy their soups on a day such as today, but if you are not feeling the piercing intensity of a hangover they have an exceptional pastry chef, and the bread for all the sandwiches is fresh baked each morning.” Severus flipped his menu over, knowing exactly what he was going to get.

                A frazzled looking Witch came to take their order, her thickly curled black hair was piled on her head, flour fingerprints danced over apron and shirt, and she had a smudge of what looked like frosting on her cheek, “Sorry I didn’t see you guys come in,” Her smile was full and wide, she looked like how a cupcake tasted, “Any idea what you’d like?”

                Severus handed her his menu, “I’ll take a bowl of the avgolemono soup and a double espresso, please.”

                “Aggo-what?” Harry said, flipping his menu around a little, “Uhm, I’ll try your turkey sandwich, and could I get a cappuccino?”

                “Sounds great, kitchen’s recovering from the lunch rush should be just about ten minutes though,” She winked and took off.

                Harry was still holding his menu, “I feel like I should have ordered something more adventurous.”

                “They have a lot of Greek fare here.” Severus realized he was still wearing his ingredients bag and removed it, slinging it on the back of the chair, “The avgolemono soup is a Greek comfort food, savory with egg, rice, chicken and lemon. I highly recommend it as a hangover cure.”

                “I’ll have to try some of yours when it comes.” Harry smirked, “So you like Greek food?”

                Severus looked down at his hands, the setting now seemed so extremely intimate. He had just been solely focused on acquiring the dish he knew would stop the roiling ache in his guts, he hadn’t thought of how close he’d be to Harry. Now as they were crammed around the small café table by a sunny window, with a breeze ghosting through Harry’s hair, there were several degrees of intimacy that he had not intended, “My mother was of Greek descent. Her grandmother I believe. The Prince line attempted to stay away from the inbreeding of the other purebred lines and so often wed with Mediterranean Wizarding families. I didn’t get this nose from my father.”

                Harry laughed at that, “It’s not a terribly English nose.”

                “The Snapes are Scottish.” Severus found himself saying, looking out the window feeling actually amused by the conversation.

                “Oh excuse me I meant no offense.”

                Snape gave him a smirk, “I didn’t have much Mediterranean culture growing up, but my mother made the food. All of her cooking was done by hand because my father didn’t allow magic. I grew up with it.”

                “Got your drinks here,” the waitress was back, and delicately as she could set the cups and saucers on the table between them. The froth from the cappuccino spilled gloriously over the lip of Harry’s cup, and she handed him a napkin, “Sorry about that I always over fill them,”

                “No problem at all looks delicious,” Harry smiled at her and she shuffled away. Harry picked up the cup and swiped at the overflowed foam trail with his tongue, “So what do you need in Diagon Alley?”

                Severus took his eyes off Harry’s mouth, and looked at his own steaming espresso. He took a long sip before he answered, “I feel my answer is comically trite.”

                Harry gave a small laugh at that, “Potions ingredients?”

                Severus gave a nod of his head before sipping at his espresso again, “I used to have all the ingredients delivered ahead of time. But I’ve fallen behind my lesson plan in ordering ingredients.” Why tell the brat that? It’s not like Harry wouldn’t know it wasn’t normal for him to buy his ingredients fresh. It’s not like it was his fault he had just crashed back into existence yesterday. Why was any of this happening?

                “It’s nice out, a good excuse to leave the castle.” Harry didn’t seem to think the plethora of information Severus was offering was strange.

                “What brought you out of the castle today?” Severus prompted, more than willing to just sit and listen, sipping espresso until his soup arrived.

                “A smoke.” Harry said simply, “I need to be working on my lesson plan, Minerva has me starting next week. Apparently she had lined up some Witch named Starla Skamander but she got a nasty Normonfly bite just a week before the start of the year and is still recovering. The students have had over two weeks with an empty space in their defense schedule block so Minerva wants me as soon as possible.” A sip from the foamy cappuccino, “I’m surprised she didn’t have you trying to cover.”

                She had tried, Severus didn’t say. Severus had painfully proven that he couldn’t do it. The course load. Being on his feet for twelve hours. All those students. All that effort. It had drained him and in two days he had issued full detention bricks for the rest of the month.

                Everyone’s sanity was best spared by him simply doing his potions work. The potions coursework was among the more challenging fields offered at Hogwarts, and Minerva had apologized for even asking him to take on more.

                Severus was relieved that he at least hadn’t said any of that. He didn’t pick up the espresso again, the thick rich brew was hurting his empty stomach. Instead he nursed the water glass that had surreptitiously filled itself when they sat down.

                “I think I shouldn’t come by during the week.” Harry declared in the comfortable rumbling silence of waiting for their food.

                Severus simply nodded, “Clearly that would be my preference as well.” And he was coming around to not trusting himself around revisiting that nightmare. He had spent almost a decade either drunk or hungover, and it was really shocking any of his students had made it out alive.

                “Good. And you don’t have to. I mean. We don’t have to do it in your sitting room. That’s your space and… I’ve almost got my rooms set up. Or we can use the room of requirement.”

                “I prefer my rooms.” Severus found himself saying. What? He didn’t have any logical explanation for his preference, he just spat it out and couldn’t argue the truth of it, “As you say it is my space, and as unpleasant as your return has been I find it fortifying to be somewhere familiar.”

                Harry nodded, confirming for Severus that those words had all come out in the correct order with some kind of coherent meaning to them. Excellent. “So I’ll come by tomorrow around teatime. And then we’ll hold off until next week.”

                Their food appeared, and they tucked in. It was a truce. Harry had finally given Severus some small say as he blew through. It was a good manipulation tactic, whether the younger man intended it or not. He was either still as devious as ever or a natural at coercion. Severus didn’t much care, it would be the same in the end, and right now he had his favorite soup.

 

 

                “Would it be too forward…” Harry started, Severus looked up from the hot water he was pouring in the tea pot, “Never mind,” the boy finished lamely.

                The rest of Saturday passed without Harry popping up again, and he had even had the decency to owl to Severus Sunday morning and ask if a 2 o’clock visit was alright.

                Severus had responded that 3:30 promptly was the time he could visit.

                “You may as well say it,” Severus drawled, “We’re currently entertaining being on pleasant terms, for us. If I’m terribly offended it will only be a return to the status quo.”

                “I’m not in the mood to go back to that night.” Harry spat out, “I didn’t think I’d lose my nerve so fast. But I didn’t plan out any of this very well.”

                “We both have classes in the morning,” Severus made the observation; “I am equally amenable to finishing this masochistic crusade or putting it off until next weekend.”

                Harry shook his head, but it didn’t seem like he was disagreeing, more that he was simply thinking, “I don’t think I can even do it in one more sitting. We’d have to go next weekend as well either way,”

                “I don’t see how this revelation is in any way ‘forward’, you’ve made it clear you don’t hold any issue monopolizing my time.” Severus turned the tea timer, and brought the tray over to the couch, setting it on the coffee table.

                “What is this? It smells good.”

                “Ginger chamomile,” Severus replied, “It’s well into the afternoon and I don’t have any intention of staying up late. What is ‘forward’?”

                “Can we go…” Harry lost his nerve again, “Seeing how we had sex, from your point of view. In Malfoy Manor. It’s just so… It’s really interesting.”

                “You are not the first perverted Wizard to make such an observation, although I’m sure being years removed from the terror and trauma of the violation has more to do with your newfound perspective than the introduction of a secondary point of view.”

                “I could feel your emotions, the memory is tainted with how you feel about me. Not tainted. Influenced. I know you’re worried about me, and I know you think I’ll be okay. I couldn’t feel that at the time. Everything was mortality and death and terror then. I felt like you were administering me my last rites.” Harry chuckled, not making eye contact, looking down at the spout of the steaming tea pot, “I cried out of loss. I cried because after you fucked me was when I accepted that I wasn’t going to make it.  I was convinced before that, but I hadn’t accepted it.”

                Severus was quiet, the sand in the tea timer crumbled to finality, and Severus poured them each a cup, placing a stasis charm on the pot so that it wouldn’t go bitter.

                He handed a saucer and cup to Harry, and the boy took it gratefully. They sipped in silence for a little longer than was comfortable. Each time a thought bubbled to the front of Severus’s mind he forced it back down with some hot tea. Nothing seemed right to say.

                “It felt… Amazing. To know that you weren’t…. feeling obligated. Pity fucking me. I didn’t know that my interpretation of you fulfilling my dying request was weighing me down like that. But you weren’t pitying me. You weren’t disgusted with me or mopping up a mess you felt you had made. We were partners.” He drained his cup in a childish manner, swinging his head abck and giving a final audible slurp. Severus was reminded that he was still so _young_ , “You were helping me. And planning to get me out. We were doing what we needed to do-Together. I felt utterly powerless in that situation, but you were thinking I was… Devious. Clever. I felt your mind think the word ‘ruthless’ when I asked you to fake some come inside me,” He blushed and chuckled, pouring another cup.

                They were just talking. There wasn’t any way for this to turn vitriolic and terrible, they were too tired now for that, “You were handling yourself well. You remained in control.  You have a very high level of expectation from someone being tortured by Death Eaters if you thought you were at all pitiable that night.” Severus finished his own cup, and Harry poured him another as well, Severus took a breath before continuing, “But please don’t hinge any great importance on my faith that you would escape and survive. You were there for hours. We’re only at the beginning, I…”

                Their eyes, met, and Severus was the coward who looked away first.

                Silence. Small sips, savoring this cup because after this there was nothing to distract them, “I also accepted your death, by the end. I was sure you were going to die, Harry. It’s important to me that you know that. My actions-” He stopped abruptly. Harry was postponing this why shouldn’t he?

                Harry stared at the bookshelf across from him, his jawline flexed a big as he clenched his teeth and swallowed, “I’m not ready for that yet.” He took a tiny sip, “It’s been three years how am I not…”

                “Three years seems very long when bridging the ages between seventeen and twenty.” Severus drawled, “I feel as though it were yesterday. Some mornings I wake up and have to orient myself in time. I’m not sure if it’s ten years ago, five, or three. I still have a vial of dreamless sleep by my bed every night because I’m not even ready to face my own nightmares.”

                “Well and the alcoholism is going to catch up with you.” Harry said, smiling at himself, “You’ve got years of nightmares waiting for you.” Why what a Slytherin thing to say, Golden Boy. He was belaboring the point and Severus couldn’t quite put his finger on why.

                “I don’t…” Severus swallowed his knee-jerk defensiveness, “I was a wreck during the end of the war. I don’t know how I staggered up every morning but for almost your entire adolescence at Hogwarts I know exactly how I put myself to bed at night. I’m not proud of it. I no longer make it a habit.” He took a breath. He collected himself, “I’m not proud of how quickly I stumbled back into being that version of myself.”

                “Night terrors will come, you know.” Harry murmured,  less cheeky this time, “Dreamless sleep works the same way as drink.”

                “ I’m a potions master, P-” he swallowed back the disallowed name, and Harry broke eye contact, looking away. Severus didn’t correct himself, he simply continued on, “I am well aware of all of the side effects I’m accruing.”

                “I want to see your memory of the night before!” It wasn’t so much a blurting as a verbal stagger. Severus imagined the boy had noticed the distance the conversation had put between him and his desired request, and haphazardly righted the course.

                “The night…” Severus started to repeat before he could stop himself.

                “That I came down. After your meeting.” As if Harry actually needed to clarify.

                “I know what you meant.” Severus said, quieter than he thought he was going to manage. The boy’s request had wiped his mind blank, “… Why?”

                “I just…” Harry apparently couldn’t find his thoughts either, “I…” He hung his head. He shrugged. He looked at his empty teacup in disappointment.

                Severus was not usually one to feel compulsion to fill a silence, but right now he felt the drive, “We never got to an advanced level of our Occlumency training. I don’t know if you met with other tutors after myself, but there are other factors to take into consideration when deciding to view a memory.”

                Harry met his eyes, apparently having regained his courage, “I went to some mind-healers at St. Mungos who looked through my memories with me. I didn’t really feel comfortable with any of my healers there though. So I practiced with Hermione. She read some books and helped me figure it out. I- I know that my memories were magically corrupted by the Cruciatus. It’s because I was technically a little insane at the time and… And the magic of the wizarding brain can’t make a whole memory in that state.”

                “Precisely,” Severus said, “And what started myself down the path to inevitable alcoholism. The Dark Lord dug into the minds of those around him, and when I was less confident in my skills as an Occlumens I would simply binge drink after passing on my information to Dumbledore. I don’t claim this as the sole reason I took up the drink, but it was the most practically compelling.”

                Harry nodded, “That makes a lot of sense, actually. Is it the same with Veritaserum?”

                Severus gave a curt nod, “It can be. Veritaserum only knows the truth of the drinkers mind. If the drinker is aware that they were heavily influenced at the time of an event, they can say ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I wasn’t there’, and the magic of the potion can’t detect it as an untruth.”

                “Right. That makes sense.” Harry thought a moment, “Had you been under the Cruciatus that day? Is the memory of… That night, uhm, corrupt?”

                Severus looked at him for a few moments, trying not to seem incredulous, “Harry. I was very drunk.”

                “Oh.” Harry said, “I mean, I knew you’d had something to drink. You did reeked of it but. You seemed very erm, present.”

                “And I was.” Severus agreed, “But my ability to hold that night as a wizarding memory was compromised.”

                “A wizarding memory?” Harry asked.

                “Yes. Your brain is magical,” Severus began to explain, “If a muggle managed to get to this room, and see it, and remember it, the muggle mind couldn’t reproduce it for a Legilimens. Shuffling through a Muggle’s mind is very different than doing so with a Wizard mind. A Muggle memory cannot be viewed in a Penseive. They aren’t a record of what happened, they are as the muggle remembers them in their _own_ mind.  If I tried to look at a Muggle’s memory of this room I would only get their interpretation of it. Maybe a few background items, ones that they noticed in particular. It would degrade just as things do in everyone’s functional memories. But when we Wizards pull these memories from ourselves, the spell takes away the _magical_ memory. That’s why we can go back and look at every piece of paper on someone’s desk, even though your mind doesn’t actively hold any of that information. You haven’t looked at my desk this whole time you’ve been here but your memory will hold every red mark on the essays. The spell takes you back to that time and place, and you can examine it more closely than how you remember it or even when you lived it.”

                “Ah. Are they… The same? Like is your memory wiped from the alcohol like the Cruciatus wiped mine?” Harry asked.

                Severus was very dearly beginning to desire a drink. And actually… Well bugger it all why bother with half measures. He stood up, and went to his drink cart, opening the cart and reaching to the very back for the solitary bottle of Vodka he still kept around, “No.” he poured himself a glass, “This is what I drank then.”

                Harry watched him dubiously as he unscrewed the bottle and upended it inartistically into a tumbler, as if pouring a juice, “What are you doing?”

                “You want to view the memory. A few things will help. If my mental state is closer to when the memory was made. Not that I have to be as inebriated, because I can’t possibly conceive of being that drunk twice in one weekend, but pouring for myself as if I intend to. The smell of it. The taste. It already takes me back to those times without my groping to see. And we’re already in the place it occurred. Both people are present.” He went back to his armchair and sat down, “I didn’t offer you any. You should remain sharp.”

                Harry nodded, “Are you sure… I mean I asked to see but you don’t _have_ to say yes. I-I won’t activate the seal or anything.”

                Severus took a swig of the sterile tasting clear liquid, “Makes no difference to me, P-Harry. I would rather look at this night than the one after. As long as you’re in the mood to process your trauma, who am I stand in the way?”

                Harry reached over to the teapot and looked in, before pouring himself the dregs of a final cup of the chamomile tea. Thank fuck Severus wasn’t drinking chamomile tea any more. The vodka burned and filled his sinuses. He didn’t mix it on that night three years ago, so he wouldn’t mix it now, but Merlin it could use a shot of cranberry juice.

                He only drank half the tumbler he poured, and he could feel he wasn’t going to drink any more. He wasn’t patient enough to slow down and any more sips would cause him to vomit. It was as excellent a way as any to start another excursion into his mind, “Alright. You can sit right there for Occlumency. No need to get so close as before.” He felt the alcohol loosening his muscles and making him less likely to snap at the boy, “It’ll be an easy memory to miss so don’t go _rifling,_ I’ll bring it to the front of my mind.”

                Harry nodded again, as if receiving battle orders, “Okay. Ready?” Severus nodded, “ _Legilimens,”_

 

                There had been a terrible gathering of the Death Eaters the night before. Severus had cancelled his classes and dodged his headmaster duties but the banging on the painting hiding his chamber doors crashed through his skull. The five or six drinks and plentiful potions with which he had padded the pain didn’t save him from the persistence of the knocker.

                Of course Potter was standing on the other side. He was looking as haggard as Severus felt. His jaw was jutting and trembling a little, the bones of his chest were finally starting to fill out those terrible gray sweaters he wore, but there was still that delicacy of youth in his limbs.

                Bright green eyes confronted him before words could, “You were supposed to check in.”

                Severus sneered as Harry pushed past him. He was no longer a student at this school, having gone into hiding with his little friends, but that didn’t mean that Severus felt any less that he should show some fucking respect, “I don’t have to follow your orders _Potter.”_  

                “Yes, you do.” Harry snapped, grabbing a lamp off of the end table by his couch and hurling it at the wall, “What the fuck happened?”

                The lamp shattered spectacularly, and began reforming itself behind the boy, wordlessly and wandlessly, as the boy’s power strummed through the air.

                “The mudbloods were _dispatched._ ” Severus hissed, “And there was a _ceremony._ ”

                “What kind of ceremony?” Harry asked, hands starting to unclench as Severus seemed open with information.

                “Oh the usual.” Severus sauntered over to his drink cart, dodging the few trailing pieces of his lamp floating over to reform on the end table. His drink cart lately had transformed into multiple large wholesale bottles of Vodka. There was no point in drinking for the flavor when he needed three drinks just coming in the door most days, “The muggle born blood is used in a ritual that singles out those around the circle with that same taint running in their veins. And then we do try our _best_ to debase ourselves and relieve ourselves of this unfortunate flaw. But often our fellow Death Eaters simply do the right thing and help out.”

                “So Scraigs and Fellows-”

                “Quite dead.” Severus poured himself two more fingers, Was it fingers with Vodka or was it just measured in the consciousness it took away? “I don’t know what you could have expected me to do. If I could stop it I would have. The blood is spilled into a stone circle, with a pattern in it. The blood then seeps through the circle maze which everyone chants rather dramatically, and it inevitably pools at my feet. If I could stop it, I would have many times before now.”

                Severus brought the glass to his lips and winced, his shoulder had been thrown back into socket by Pomfrey just this morning, “What’s wrong?” Harry asked, looking him over. But Severus’s robes covered him earlobe, wrist, to ankle. Nothing was visible.

                “I don’t believe I owe you that information.” Severus quipped snidely, “I’ve given you all the information you need.”

                “I had other eyes in that meeting.” Harry gulped, “They told me.”

                Severus sat down, wincing as the fabric of his pants rubbed hard into the abrasions on his thighs, “Then why ask?” he was losing venom, exhaustion was seeping into his tone.

                “They whipped you.” Harry said, that raw and unstable power leaking into the room again, seeming to tremble from his again-clenched fists. “H-hit you with… with sticks and he said you had to crawl and… And they…” he coughed.

                “They didn’t _rape_ me.” Severus sneered. The alcohol was joining with his pain potions, the dark black and inevitably sleep that claimed him most nights knocked at his eyelids, “You shouldn’t tell me so exactly the things your other informant sees. I’ll figure them out.” It was Molly Stillwater. He already knew. “And it was a rather young and pretty new quarter-blood recruit that received that honor. I haven’t been on that chopping block for _years._  To the endless advantages of aging,” He held his glass in a toast, and downed the rest of the harsh clear liquid.

                Harry stilled, “S-so you’re okay?”

                Severus raised a brow at him, as the room swam a bit with the boy’s change of tone, “No.” He tilted his head, “How would I be okay? Potter, answer me this, _why are you here?”_

                Harry wrung his hands, and the magic crackled into the room again, “I… I wanted to see you. I have another informant. I wanted to see if you were being honest with me.”

                Severus took a sip he forgot was no longer there, and stared down at the crystal tumbler, “And if I wasn’t?”

                Harry looked at him for a long moment, “I guess I would have understood. If you didn’t want to tell me about. About what they think happened.”

                “Then _why are you here?_ ” Snape pressed, surprised that he stayed upright with the last drink pushing him over the edge, away from his usual level of control.

                Harry crossed the room to him, standing in his space in front of the drink cart, “I was worried about you,” he hissed.

                Severus inhaled deeply against his will. Potter smelled like the forest floor, like peat and ash and rebirth. Moss and dew and memories, “What are you doing, Potter?”

                “Kissing you.” Harry said, breathlessly.

                With one sentence Severus felt himself leave his reality. He was disoriented and confused, he was dumbfounded, “Are you _mad_?”

                Harry kissed him. Severus let it happen. The boy’s power shook him, startled him, overwhelmed him. He could feel his strength, young hard body pressing him into the bookshelf and careless magic keeping him there. Harry was everywhere, demanding hands and swirling magic and a hot tongue.

                Severus’s body still hurt, but it folded under the hungering youth. He let his clothes be stripped off his body in his damn sitting room, buttons flung into the crevices between books never to be seen again. They tore the armscye of his undershirt.

                It was a blackout, bits and pieces here and there. Severus felt drunk, drugged, and incapable. Harry worshipped him, devoured him, and his vision went dark as he was pressed up against the bookshelf.

Severus came back to himself strewn on the couch, legs strewn wide and open, undignified and unashamed. His cock was stiff in the Golden Boy’s mouth, and a slick finger was buried up his ass. He burned for more, more of this wonderful ride he kept falling off. More of this dream he kept getting flashing pieces of. The pain potion and the drink made looking down at his scarred, failing body not sting like it normally would. It blocked the humiliation of being seen like this like a dam. Could he have found himself here sober? If a young Harry Potter had approached him two hours ago, could he have allowed his to happen?

                Like drowning. Coming up for air. He gasped, “Stop,” and Harry’s head popped off his cock, with a wet pop, “Fuck me. I won’t be able to come twice.”

                Harry looked like he had just been given a surprised Christmas morning, “But you said-”

                “I know what I said just fuck me,” he didn’t know what he had said. It seemed plausible he had told the boy if he was starving for it so badly he should be satisfied to suck his cock. That sounded like something he might do. But it wasn’t what he wanted.

                His mind went hazy, and he feared another rolling blackout. He wanted to _stay here_ and be in this body. No shame and no fear, no hate and no malice.

                If Potter was pulling his leg, who cared? Potter’s mouth on his cock had been sublime, and as the boy rose to his knees between Severus’s carelessly spread legs, the weight between his thighs was the best thing Severus had felt in years. Harry slicked his cock, Severus watched. The boy’s hand trembled, his breath was coming ragged, “A-are you sure?”

                “Fuck me Harry Potter,” Severus almost growled, lowering himself so his ass was almost off the couch, and the boy would only have to lean forward to penetrate him. He wanted that feeling of penetration. He wanted to feel the stretch and the burn, and the pangs of sharp pain on his ass from the whips and canes of last night to fire when they slapped together, “And I don’t care what your schoolboy friends say to do, don’t go slowly,”

                Harry glanced up and gulped, lining up and shoving inside Severus in a sharp, smooth motion. Severus threw his head back and _moaned_ , almost a scream. That feeling, of being filled and claimed and stretched and taken, that was all he needed. He didn’t know if he was making words in his moans, but if he was they would have been _more, now, faster, yes._

                The Boy Who Lived took his time, sliding out and in again, and then entirely withdrawing only to pry into Severus anew. He was playing with the older man, toying with him.

                “Potter you nit,” Severus panted, as Harry pulled out again just to plunge in, too slow, once more, “Don’t…  Please just… Aaaah!” Potter buried himself inside his ass again, stay there! Fuck me! He willed the words to come out. Potter must have at least understood the sentiment because he threw one of Severus’s legs over his shoulder and started pumping in and out like he meant it.

                Severus was lost, he was undone. He was moaning, panting, he reached down and his hands dug into the tender flesh of his ass, holding his cheeks open so Harry could fuck him even deeper.

                Fuck he was gone, he couldn’t have said how long they fucked. He came to on his knees, the coffee table in the middle of his sitting room had been upended and was leaning against the wall, he couldn’t recall if he or Harry had thrown it, or if it had been placed out of the way with magic. Fluid was running down his thighs as the boy fucked him from behind, if it was the teen’s come then Severus hadn’t noticed when he’d came. One fist was tightly bound in his hair, the other painfully gripping into his hip, pulling him back with a snap at every thrust so they crashed together loud and Severus felt the vibrations in his spine and skull.

                Severus had always had the curse of being overwhelmed when he got fucked, some men didn’t experience a separate kind of pleasure from the act, and it was just an augmentation of their perfunctory orgasm. But Severus had always experienced a separate pleasure, another type of orgasm that while not as final was just as intense. The act of getting fucked, of being pried open and pumped into, his insides buckled and it took his breath away.

                His cock had gone soft, either he’d been getting fucked too long, had too much to drink or had missed his orgasm, but it didn’t matter, Harry fucking his ass had him on a roller coaster ride. Each brush of his prostate started the process anew, he was washed over and over, he didn’t know how to breathe. It was getting so good it was intolerable, he couldn’t handle it anymore the rush in his ears and the tension in his stomach, “Hurt me,” he hissed, not willing to stop, not wanting this to ever be over.

                Harry didn’t hesitate, maybe they had already done this tonight, maybe he’d already explained himself. The hand in his hair wrenched his head up, arching his aching spine and bringing the muscle between his neck and shoulder into Harry’s mouth.

                He bit _hard_ , and Severus cried out, paralyzed and still on that roller coaster of his body coming on it’s own whether his cock wanted to harden or not, Harry had pulled out of his ass and it left his hole pulsing in pleasure and brief relief.

When someone bites hard enough to hold you in place, immobilize, make you blood flow, it activates a primal flight response. It felt wrong to let the boy’s teeth sink into him, to feel the blood run from the bruised holes pierced from his incisors, and he rode that feeling as his ass thrummed in pleasure, letting the sensations mix and rock him through the fog.

                They held still, until Severus stopped twitching, until his breathing evened out, and then Harry’s mouth let go. Severus cried out again as the bruise rushed to form, and he was pushed onto all fours again, blood dripped from his shoulder down onto the carpet.

                Harry entered him again, that hand crawled into his hair and his body responded how he knew it would.

                It had to almost be morning the next time he emerged from the dark haze, he was back on his couch, belly up and legs splayed. Harry was naked between his thighs again, pumping in and out of him slowly, graciously not fast enough to start his bodies response of relentless orgasm, “I don’t even know how many times I’ve come in you,” Harry said, smiling in a way that felt out of place during sex. He smiled _wide_ and full, like he’d won the house cup. His was a smile of victory and purity, not a smile for buggering his professor.  “I feel it when your ass comes. You pulse around me. It’s amazing. I never imagined you like this,”

                “ _Good._ ” Was all Severus could muster for _that_ sentiment, his ass was sore, and when he got sore he came more. It was painful now, the building and he found himself in equal measure hoping the boy would speed up or stop, the next orgasm may kill him, but stopping may as well, “Finally run the course of your fecund youth?”

                “I think I could fuck you forever,” Harry breathed, he looked exhausted and sated, he had sweat running from his hair, the air was wet with sex in the sitting room, “But I need to see you come.”

                “I’ve _been_ coming don’t ask too much of me I’m _old-”_ Severus was cut off by Harry’s hand on his cock.

                “I’ve only touched my own you know,” Harry breathed, as he picked up the pace inside Severus’s stretched and sore ass, “I don’t know what you like, but I’m going to learn,” so much come was running from Severus’s hole, he felt it tacky on his ass, sticking his buttocks to Harry’s thighs when they came together and making a filthy noise when they pulled apart, “You see I’ve decided we’re both going to survive this war,” the fist on his cock was finally starting to get a reaction, Severus felt his exhausted flesh start to swell.

                “Optimism, Potter,” Severus panted, “But you’re fucking me like it’s your last night on earth,”

                “Pragmatism,” Harry breathed, “But this is how you need to be fucked,”

                “You win you idiot… Boy…” Severus buckled, it wasn’t an orgasm of opportunity, it wasn’t relief and pleasure. This was pulled out of him, wrenched from his sore body and exhausted mind. He did it because he had to, because Harry wanted him to, his cock pulsed with his ass, and Harry cruelly picked up the pace.

                His eyes went dark again, but he heard the sticky sounds of their coupling, he felt Harry driving inside him, shoving his head farther under water, he came too much and too hard, he wanted off, he wanted out, and that was all this memory had ever contained.

 

              


	3. Shot, No Chaser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry becomes more volatile, Snape is faced with his lack of choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW TW WARNING For Rape, substance abuse, Non-con, Torture, Dub-con, and general glorification of abuse.
> 
> Not my characters, universe, or IP.

Harry sat back in his chair, “Oh.” He said quietly.

                Severus watched his face keenly, “I told you the memory wasn’t fully intact. When you try to occlude an influenced memory that is the type of immersive, garbled picture one can expect.”

                “You… I didn’t…” Harry let out a breath that could have almost been a sob, “I didn’t know, I… You didn’t _seem,”_ he stopped himself, “I’m sorry.”

                Severus snorted, a real and true snort, fuck he had forgotten about all the vodka. It had caught up with him while they viewed the memory, “You are not sorry. If you were sorry then you wouldn’t be here.”    

                “I was a student.” Harry said defensively, “I didn’t know you were in a _blackout_ or I never would ha-”

                “You were a _student aged_ but you were _not_ a student under my care you get that straight.” Severus cut him off, “And I would like to put forth the hypothesis that you would have. From the moment you _crashed_ into my rooms, from the moment you heard about the Death Eater Ceremony you were going to go for it. We both saw that memory now it was in your clenched little fists and your buckling little jaw-damn you’re little.”

                “I’m not- I- I didn’t know why I went there- _here-_ I was worried about you I was worried about plans I had made based off information you gave me I didn’t…” Harry shook his head, “So you haven’t been harboring any guilt about buggering a student? Not at all?”

                Severus shrugged, “ _Former_ student and no I hadn’t really thought of it. I feel guilt about your mother dying. Or Dumbledore dying. Or you dying. But then that last one un-happened a few times. So.” Fuck he’d gone and turned into a lightweight. Rambling on. Merlin, “But there are many more deaths that I do in fact feel much worse about so whatever tier of guilt statutory rape sits on for the guilt-layman is a one I no longer have the luxury of entertaining.”

                “I….” Harry’s face shut down, and Severus could see his gaze cast back, rifling through his own mind.

                “Why not share?” Severus said, fiddling with the glass he had not intended on emptying. There was a savory pastry cut in half on the tray that he hadn’t intended on eating, but now leaned forward and grabbed to take a decisive bite out of. He chewed and swallowed. Harry was still looking at him as if imploring about his last comment, “You’re sitting there rifling through your memories. It simply seems selfishly non-reciprocal of you to do so alone after my magnanimous generosity in that area as of late.” Severus had his hand up, holding the glass, red mark clearly visible through the clear tumbler. Harry took the bait and glanced at it, but said nothing.

                “I have to go,” Harry mumbled.

                “Coward,” Severus spat mirthfully. _Fuck_ him. _Fuck_ this little boy traipsing about as he pleased. _Fuck_ this disrespect and lack of reciprocity. What were they even doing? Why were they even walking this tightrope? What did Harry _expect_ of him? “You come back here. You walk back into my life. You’re just here to take. To drain the last of one of your last resources.” He tried to stand but the futile bite of that pastry he had taken apparently hadn’t been enough to absorb all the alcohol he had downed in that perilously short amount of time.

                Harry caught him though, of course he did. Of _course_ he did.

                “You’re shite.” Severus righted himself, “If you weren’t here I would have _stumbled_ and it would be fine. I would have been fine. We didn’t need a martyr. There are no _saviors_ and to expect one is to be an idiot.” He looked down at Harry but got distracted and brushed crumbs off of himself. They were clear on his black vest, where _had_ the other half of that pastry gone… Perhaps he had eaten it, “Being one. Being a savior, that makes you an idiot too.”

                Harry was looking into his eyes. Severus didn’t bother looking back. He hated those eyes. He kept his gaze trained just over him. In his line of vision was the lamp Harry had exploded when he came over that night. There was a little piece near the base that had never rematerialized, probably powdered in the original blast of magic, “You’re right, Severus.”

                “Generally,” Severus glanced down, affirmed that yes the eyes were still bright and green and breathtaking just like Witch Weekly frequently fawned.

                “I didn’t want to be.” Harry offered him a small smile, “And I never meant to be. I wasn’t a good soldier, and I wasn’t a good general. Neville was excellent at both. You were an excellent spy. Dumbledore was a master manipulator. And I’m called the Savior.” Harry hadn’t taken his hands off of Severus’s waist and shoulder, where he had steadied him, “I’m not even a good person.”

                Severus snorted again, his regrettable drunken laugh, “None of us were good people. A good person in war is a dead one.”

                “It’s not war anymore,” Harry said, and Severus’s fire in the hearth took that moment to sparkle to life, meaning it must be past five. The flame illuminated the emerald eyes with amber, “And now I know that when you’re drunk you can’t turn down getting fucked.”

                Severus let his gaze fix on Harry. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Harry Potter was supposed to mumble something about lesson plans after viewing the memory. Harry Potter was supposed to bugger off after getting what he asked for. This was a person he painfully didn’t know.

                The hand-Harry’s hand- on his shoulder came up further behind Severus’s neck, and he was pulled down, almost off balance, into a hot and quick kiss. He was off balance now but Harry’s stance was firm, and his hand strong against his neck, preventing him from standing, “And I was going to go,” Harry breathed against his lips, “But then I saw how drunk you’d gone and gotten yourself.”

                Severus’s mind was blank, just like last time. He would have been angrier with Harry if he had left. He would have spat curses at the door. He would have been angry and right now and he couldn’t remember why, “N-no,” He said back to Harry, almost silently. Severus didn’t need this, he couldn’t. He had been a different person in the war. He had been a different person all his life but that wasn’t him anymore.

                Not since that night in Malfoy Manor. He had divested himself of that curse. He didn’t need to be forced to his knees in his sitting room, and he didn’t need to bleed and beg and cry and die for this _boy._    

                His body miraculously pushed Harry away for him, thank Merlin, “Is this what you came back here for?” He asked, righting himself to standing on his own, “More dungeon shags with greasy old Professor Snape? Do you entertain some notion that our one wartime fuck in the trenches was going to lead anywhere that would benefit either of us?”

                Harry shook his head, that damn fire still in his eyes, “ _Legilimens,_ ”

                Severus felt dragged off his feet, and he may have been. Harry only entered his mind for a moment, to perform the mental equivalent of a bear-hug and then drag Severus back into his own.

                Severus had only ever had a very organized mind. It was the only way his mind _worked_. When he had forayed into other’s minds, he had generally also been met with whole, intact, well organized minds.

                This was a _mess._ With his current state of inebriation, it was nauseating. Magical cracks and fissures, he felt them like fire. He felt the graft of The Dark Lord’s soul, traces left behind, and the tearing power of where Dumbledore had excised it in the afterlife, traces left behind there too. Shards like shattered glass of Lily’s power, emerald green laced again with the neon green of The Dark Lord’s, veined and almost indistinguishable, equally destructive now. He was here too, his magic black and glancing, not clearly evident, buzzing everywhere.  He panicked as he felt himself, how prominently he felt his hand here, another graft onto this magical abomination.

                “You should have died.” Severus said, collapsing to his knees in his sitting room, “No one. None of us treated you like we thought you’d live.”

                “That’s kind of what the muggle mind healer said.” Harry agreed from next to him, despite being in front of him, Severus looked over his shoulder to himself at the drink cart, and the more current version of Harry standing next to his past self, “I had a lot of people who had put their… Final moments into me. Strong people. People throwing one last shot out. One last prayer. Hail-Mary’s.” He came back to Severus and hoisted him up, leading him over to the desk on the other wall and turning the chair so Severus could sit in it, “My psychiatrist had a magical brother, so she kind of understood magic. We in the wizarding world assign a purity and perfection to that kind of magic. Something done out of pure love like my mother couldn’t have been a hastily constructed mess of a spell that as it shattered syphoned Voldemort’s power entirely on accident and in such a way where he was able to leave another Horcrux in me.” He chuckled, ignoring the figures in the room sharing a sloppy kiss, “But my Psychiatrist brought up the point… Isn’t there a whole field, Arithmacy based on the proper construction of spells? Doesn’t it take time and thought and feet of parchment…”

                Severus glanced at their doppelgangers in the room before dizzily training his gaze back on Harry, “It’s nauseating to be here.”

                Harry nodded, “Yeah,” Younger Harry was tearing off Severus’s clothes with a sloppy combination of grappling hands and irresponsible magic.

                Severus could feel how precious this memory was, he could feel how it felt like healing to the boy. He felt Harry’s excitement at seeing Severus’s skin and knowing he could touch it. This memory was whole and complete and treasured and coddled, clearer than the storm outside it, better preserved than the miasma he had to cross to get here.

                It felt like outside the walls of this memory of his sitting room was an electric storm.

                However the younger Harry here was solid. He was exhausted. He had been terrified that Severus was going to be damaged beyond repair by what he had heard of the meeting.

                But Severus was too strong for that. Severus admitted that in meetings before this one he had been raped, and he was continually abused by these people he had pledged allegiance to and he stood so damn strong still. He stood so tall. Harry had been abused and it had turned him into a mouse. As a boy he was cheeky, but a coward. He had sacrificed his pride for his safety in the cupboard under the stairs and didn’t bother having any dreams bigger than his spiders.

                And then there was this man. Miles of pale skin folded tightly over long bones and tension-tight muscle and sinew. Old scars. New scars. Fresh wounds. It was a tapestry of pain every inch more that he uncovered under these clothes, clothes of which he wore too many.

                Severus snapped out of the memory narrative, coming back to himself, this was too much. With all the tipsy strength he could manage he hauled himself out of this patchwork mental trap, and crashed into the tea tray on the table of his current, real, sitting room.

                Harry blinked at him a few times from above, “I thought you wanted me to share.”

                Severus was panting from the mental effort, the tea pot had broken and the dregs had spilled out, leaking a stream of over-steeped tea onto his carpet. He didn’t look up at Harry. He just kept his gaze trained down at the spilled tea leaves. They had spilled in a spiral, looking suspiciously like a snake. He dragged his hand through the design because fuck divination, “You need help.” Was all he could muster quietly down at the spilled tea.

                “I know,” Harry said, his voice without the edge it had acquired before he had pulled Severus into his mind, “I’m getting it.” He didn’t bend down to pick Severus up, instead he grabbed his cloak off the back of the couch and folded it over his arm, Severus finally looked up at him. He felt a burning shame to realize he was almost afraid of what he would instigate from Harry, he didn’t know if he could fend off another pass, “I’m sorry about… All this.” Was all the boy said.

                Severus swallowed, and some tiny residual pieces of him wanted that Harry from a few minutes ago back, the Harry that wasn’t going to mumble something about lesson plans and take his leave. That Harry would take advantage of him already being folded over the coffee table and fuck him into his cracked tea tray. The left-behind fragments of who Severus used to be could have found something to say, some way to goad the boy and get the painful, detrimental fuck he wanted despite himself.

                But that wasn’t Severus any more. It couldn’t be. He didn’t want that pain any more. Most of him didn’t, at least. 

                He said nothing, and trained his gaze back down to his broken tea tray, starting to knit itself back together under Harry’s magic, “Leave it.” He muttered quietly.

                The magic stopped flowing, and the pieces clattered down, “I have to go work on my lessons for tomorrow.” Harry said, walking towards the door, he stopped and turned at the door, “I’ll owl you about next weekend.”

                Harry left before they could exchange any more words.

 

                Harry did not owl him about next weekend. He became invisible. Harry didn’t come down for breakfast, and if he was at dinner then he had to notice that Severus usually skipped that meal in favor of a light tea while he graded papers.

                “Severus, a word.” Severus was leaving his breakfast Thursday morning at the great hall when he turned to the voice that called him.

                McGonagall was filling out the mysticism of the headmaster role in a way he himself could have never managed. In fairness, her advanced age certainly helped, but he could never have mustered the seemingly compulsory twinkle in the eye that made a truly great headmaster, “Of course, Headmistress.”

                “Would you mind terribly a hike up to my office?” She said over the heads of a few first years quickly filtering off to their first class of the day.

                Severus nodded in acquiescence, and began the trek up to the great golden statue that had briefly and disastrously been the entrance to his own office.

                When they got there, McGonagall gave the password, “Calico,” she said, giving him a wry smile. Last month it had been Russian Blue. If Severus could become even an inch more fond of her he would have in that moment. She was a perfect witch and a perfect headmistress.

                They ascended the staircase and Severus arrived in the Headmistress office. For a while he had avoided the room. McGonagall had sensed this feeling in him and a few others and had switched the room around. It now only resembled Dumbledore’s old office in that the paintings of previous Heads of Hogwarts still lined the walls.

 She had charmed in a few more windows, and there was a unique cat bed in each one. Severus didn’t know if she had acquired more cats just for the transformation or if the handful she had now were baseline, but they did really help. The space seemed higher now, perhaps she had transfigured the ceiling up a few feet. Above the tightly packed bookshelves there were empty or minimally stuffed shelves that ran back and forth between the recently added windows, the cats prowled and loomed on this miniature highway built just for them, watching the movements of the new human available for pets. The four or five cats seemed more comforting to Severus right now, but he was sure to the students he sent up for misbehaving the yellowed green eyes glared down in accusation and suspicion.

A rather plump ball of grey fluff descended a set of wedges weighted under the books in a bookshelf to rub against Severus’s leg.

“Oh Gustav, you just can’t resist a set of black trousers.” McGonagall swooped down and picked up the cat, taking him with her to a stuffed armchair in the corner. She no longer loomed behind a desk as Dumbledore had. She had two fluffy armchairs in the corner. Close enough to lean in and put a hand on a knee, a comfortable distance to share a tray of tea, an uncomfortable closeness at which to receive disappointed glare. It was perfect.

Gustav seemed content to sit in her lap and purr, and she gestured to the other overstuffed chair. It was coated in cat hair, she noticed, muttering a charm that made the hair peel up and disappear in a glittery pop. It was quite a display of housekeeping.

Severus sat down, grateful to not have to pick the hair off of him all day. It’s not that he didn’t like cats, he was actually quite fond of them, but these days walking around the castle covered in cat hair caused people to wonder what kind of talk the Headmistress had had with you. He didn’t need whispers and speculation from his more imaginative students.

“So last night I had a rather high strung young Professor to comfort in that armchair,” McGonagall began, summoning a tea tray out of nowhere. Severus was now privy to the knowledge that it was summoned from a magical pedestal in the kitchens that the House Elves always kept stocked, so that the Head of Hogwarts always seemed to have this magical ability to create something from nothing, “And I have to say I learned quite a bit.”

Severus watched her. Was he getting yelled at? Should he interpret the cats as glaring?

“Did you have a brief physical relationship with Harry Potter while you were Headmaster here at Hogwarts?” Direct. No riddles, minimal twinkle, she just wanted the truth.

“I…” Severus wanted to spurt out that Harry was _not_ a student at the time, he had withdrawn from school, he had been above the age of sixteen, Severus hadn’t even _considered_ that he was doing something illegal at the time, but what he said was, “Yes, Headmistress.”

“And this relationship, how would you describe it?” Minerva began to pour the tea.

                Severus watched the pinkish liquid flow and smelled the floral and peachy notes of it. A flowery summer tea to say farewell to the season, “Misguided.”

                Minerva gave a half smile to that, “Well. I would like you to describe it in a little longer form, and not in a way I could simply guess myself.”

                Severus tilted his head, “I was surprised at Harry’s overture. I wasn’t in any sort of place to view anyone as romantic interests at the time. He had been my student. I was… Surprised,” He finished lamely, “I made no advancements on him. I don’t see how he could have felt pressured or manipulated into his actions.”

                Minerva handed him a teacup and saucer, glancing down as Severus took it, “Interesting mark you’ve acquired.”

                Severus looked down, the dark seal that the boy had clapped onto him was bright and incriminating, “Ah, yes. A temporary one. I know with my past it is not a smart idea to be clearly telegraphing blood magic in the open,” He willed a glamour over it, to cover it, but it only remained for a moment before flickering back to the original bright design.

                “Oh remember to cover it when you leave. Glamours are cast-off in this room. I don’t know which old Witch came up with it but I have to admit it comes in handy.” She sipped her tea, “How did you come by this mark?”

                Severus stared at her. What did she know? Merlin’s balls she was more like the late Dumbledore every day, “Headmistress…” He began. She was his friend. She had always cared for him. It would be irrational to assume she was trying to torture him now, “Can we… This is seeming similar to a war-time battle of intelligence and wits. Information gathering. I would consider it a personal favor if we dispensed with it.”

                She seemed startled, and the fat cat jumped off of her lap, “Severus I’m… I am quite sorry that wasn’t my intention, but of course…” she trailed off, “Harry came in here. He was riddled with guilt and he _confessed_ to me. He said he’d crossed the line with you, that he had ulterior motives being here with you, that he’d abused you and manipulated you, with both with magic and physically. He was wracked with guilt and while I do believe he was guilty I…” she took a sip, “He’s a silly little boy, still.”

                Severus snorted, “That he very much is.”

                “I didn’t believe you would let someone engage with you in such a way he felt he had. I know you, Severus. People who wrong you face consequences.” She smiled, “So I thought maybe you were torturing him and he was too headstrong to see it. I thought maybe you were just having a misunderstanding. And I was I suppose trying to make you… Defend your arrangement with him.”

                “Thank you for your honesty,” Severus said, finally taking a sip of the overly flowery tea himself, “I wish to respond in kind.” He set the cup back in the saucer and thought a minute, “I don’t… Think of it. It’s from late in the war and I haven’t even become at peace with the beginning. I don’t believe he wronged me. I don’t believe the wrong that I did him was in the act of our physical relationship. I was a spy and I have many, _many_ morally dubious decisions to live with. I do suppose it has given him a power over me since his return.”

                Minerva raised her eyebrows, “Honestly I… Wasn’t expecting that.” She patted her lap to try to get Gustav back, but he seemed busy burying his face deeply in his own groin, she tsked, “I thought he was just being over the top.”

                “He deserves the power he has over me,” Severus said, watching the cat lick himself vigorously, “I know that this isn’t an ideal situation in which to have two of your Professors. I know… I don’t know. I know that I’m not capable of ever repenting for all I did. I know that I’ll spend the rest of my life running from the nightmares. I’ll always wonder if I’ll be dragged in front of the Wizengamot today tomorrow or the next. If a family member of someone I killed will come for me. If Harry will.”

                Minerva was silent, listening, and Severus could feel she very much wanted a cat to be stroking.

                “I didn’t expect or desire to make it to this side of the war,” Severus continued, “There are consequences. There will be consequences for generations. I don’t think this development with Harry effects my abilities as a Professor. I don’t think these children need be protected from the trauma and fear that I carry with me. And I don’t think I need protecting from Harry Potter.”

                “Okay,” she said. She was thinking, “I… You don’t show it, Severus. I consider you a dear friend and… And I wish that you could have come to me earlier with these feelings. I wish I hadn’t just dismissed the possibility that you were in pain when another professor came to me saying he had caused it in you. So… You know I would dismiss him, Severus. In a heartbeat if you asked it. He’ll be fine.” She smiled.

                Severus nodded, he hadn’t known that, actually. He had assumed if he had a problem with the young professor he would have to be the one to resign his tenure, “Thank you.”

                “Do you… Should I?” Minerva asked, bluntly.

                Severus was silent, “That would be easier.” He said quietly, “But I think…” Severus didn’t know. He hadn’t expected this. He wanted the boy gone, “I’m powerless around him. And he knows that. He’s a danger to me.”

                Minerva nodded, “Of course, Severus.” She let her teacup saucer go and it floated down to the tray, “I should have believed Harry when he-”

                “I… I must take my leave.” Severus stood. He felt… Uncomfortable, all of the sudden, “I’m sorry. I don’t like… Hiding behind you. And the school. Please can we just… forget this. Just forget it all.”

                He hastily left the office, not looking back at her to let her protest.

 

Classes seemed long that day. The 7th year Hufflepuffs worked on their individual graduation lab projects while he graded papers. They weren’t any challenge but the time dragged. Then a disastrous double period with Ravenclaw and Slytherin second-years. Each side of the room tried to out-know-it-all each other like he could even bother to care. He started asking all his questions rhetorically so they’d stop trying to out-answer each other.

                And then it was finally lunch. His stomach was roiling, so he went to his office connected to the potions classroom and began to prepare for the Gryffindor 1st years he was going to have to torture himself with after his lunch hour.

                He was beginning to see that application was key to working with this group of idiots. They were predisposed to hate him, coming from a house that had a very negative view on unity and a predisposition to fancying themselves the house of choice. The easiest way to deal with this he had found was to try to make them perform _despite_ him. If you told a Gryffindor they couldn’t do something, they would need to prove you wrong.

                It didn’t build in a mindset of actually using potions in their lives and careers, however. His advanced post-degree class had all of one Gryffindor in it. Ever. He’d been running the program in the three years since the war. The lack of Gryffindor representation couldn’t be statistically warranted, he needed to find a way to weed out that supercilious dismissal of everything Slytherin that they came in with.

                Gryffindor and Slytherin had been lovers. There had to be a connection there. Dumbledore and Grindewald, another famous cross-house pairing. There was something about the two houses that attracted each other when they just fucking let it.

                Oh. Severus stopped his musing. Let’s not go there. Not right now. There will be time for that. Just not now.

                The door to his office swung open, fast, and Harry stood on the other side.

                Severus mused for a moment that perhaps thinking about the boy was akin to saying The Dark Lord’s name aloud. Perhaps there was some terrible summoning element that he should be trying even harder to avoid, “May I help you?”

                “You got me sacked!” Harry spouted, still on the other side of the door.

                “I did no such thing.” Severus mused from behind his desk, “I believe you went to the Headmistress yourself.”

                “I… Let me in!” Harry demanded.

                “I’m not keeping you out.” Severus made note, it did seem like the boy couldn’t cross the threshold into his office, “Perhaps Minerva instructed the castle to remove you from my personal areas.”

                Severus finally let himself study the boy, upon closer inspection he was clearly livid, “Severus. I went to her. I did and I… I wasn’t thinking straight. Please.” He placed his hand on the air of the threshold, seeming to make a mime of himself, “Please Severus I have… I have to.” He was pushing. Magic was beginning to crackle around his flat-pressed hand in the threshold of the door.

                “Harry, don’t test the Castle’s magic. It’s known to hold a grudge.” Severus said, watching keenly as sparks and streaks of electricity shot out from around Harry’s hand. It created a terrible pressure in the room as he pressed, the air seemed somehow to turn to _noise_ pushing back against him and raising in intensity more and more until Severus thought somehow it would pop, “Stop!” He shouted, rising from his chair.

                Harry didn’t stop, and Severus stormed over to him, pushing his hand off the threshold from the other side.

                Harry grabbed the hand with which he did, his left hand, and yanked him through, Severus heard his bad shoulder pop and he cursed. He had been in so many duels, hand his wand yanked out of his hand so many times, been held down, caught himself when falling, all with his this dominant arm so many times the ligaments and tendons and muscles that were supposed to support it and keep it in place barely bothered to heal these days. It had been three years since his shoulder’s last dislocation, which may have been a record.

                The pain was bracing, he tore his hand out of Harry’s, the slight twisting motion causing a wave of pain so intense that he could only interpret it as vertigo, and he fell to his knees on the castle’s floor.

                “Shit-Fuck-Severus I’m- Oh Christ are you okay?” Harry stammered, his rage seemingly left behind.

                “Merlin,” Severus ground out, “Wizards say _Merlin_ how can you be so oblivious?” He clenched his arm very close to his body with the other hand so that it wouldn’t swing or move before he could get to Poppy and have her perform the reduction charm. No one was better at them then her and he was the reason why, “It’s my bad shoulder it pops out with little provocation.”

                “I-Yeah. I know. I’m sorry.” Harry sat down next to where Severus was kneeling, “I know I went to Minerva. I thought. I wasn’t thinking. I don’t want to go.” His voice was wavering, “I just- I’ve been feeling so much _better_ since I’ve been back here. And also it feels really shite to get sacked.”

                Severus stayed quiet, thinking for a moment before speaking, “I didn’t quite tell her to sack you. I left it up to her.”

                “I know exactly what you said,” Harry muttered, looking at the hand that was clutching his injured arm, “I can view your memories from afar. That thing is a key into your mind.”

                “Then this was stupid,” Severus hissed as he released his injured arm to look at the tattoo on his palm, “What did this cost you, Harry? Do you want to completely fracture your mind like The Dark Lord did? Are you trying to destroy yourself?”

                Harry stared at him, “It didn’t cost me anything. This didn’t, at least. Using it costs me stamina and power, but I’ve always had an unhealthy amount of those. I couldn’t have put it on you if I hadn’t saved your life. Blood magic always balances out. You owed me a debt, so I could magically claim you like this at a bargain. If you saved my life, or if the scales of blood magic decided you had repaid your debt, it would disappear.” He reached out and took the hand, “Ron’s will never disappear because I only used it to save his fucking life,” Harry chuckled at that, “And I figured… If you helped me through this, that would be enough. If you helped me… Process that night, then that would be worth a life. Worth my life, at least.”

                “All it cost you was a wound closing charm and shoving a bezoar down my throat?” Severus quirked an eyebrow, ignoring the fact that he felt clammy, his vision was swimming, and he was beginning to almost ooze sweat from the shock. He was sure his skin was a horrid shade of green, “I sold cheap.”

                “I’m… I think. I think I deserve-” Harry swallowed, “I’m going to use it. I’m going to call on the debt and maybe it’ll disappear and maybe it won’t. Every time it forces you to call me Harry the scales tip. And I’m going to… I’m going to make you say a bunch of stuff, Severus. And I don’t know if the mark will still be there after. I don’t know how a job stacks against a life.” He got quiet. Severus wanted to withdraw his hand but he didn’t want to jar his other shoulder. Harry could overpower him right now. Any fight would just make what was about to happen into an unforgiveable event, and he didn’t have the stamina to feel unforgivably towards Harry.

                Harry pronated Severus’s hand, palm up, and held his own over it. Severus felt the change subtly, as he was rewritten into a person who was going to defend Harry Potter. He was going to go beg Minerva for Harry’s job back.

                He was going to be sick.

                “Cauldron,” He said swiftly, and Harry reached behind him to a shelf and quickly handed him a 1st year’s pewter basin, Severus wretched and upended his breakfast, glad he hadn’t tried for lunch.

                Harry looked as horrible as Severus felt, also as horrible as he probably looked, “I’m- Are you- Let me take you to the infirmary.”

                Severus felt gutted. The boy had committed many violations since he’d arrived, but this one felt like Severus should care more. This should be the one where he got _angry._ “Harry…” he had to call him that. Harry _forced_ his given name even into his mind, and then he _dared_ to look nauseated by it, to say he was sorry, “Harry just stop,” He wasn’t angry though. Not at Harry. Severus knew… He knew that there was nothing he could do, no amount of repentance that would get this mark off his hand, “You have to just stop,” Severus shakily regained his feet, just tell him, tell Harry everything you did and then he will _go,_ “You need to just move on,” Oh you fucking coward, “Nothing I have for you will heal you, this crusade doesn’t end in balance or acceptance or whatever contrived romance you may be seeking.” Cowards make the best spies. Severus was the best spy.

                “It’s not… Contrived,” Harry licked his lips and swallowed, telegraphing in every way possible that he was saying something that was hard, that he was being _brave_ , “I feel like I got captured right after… I-I fell in love with you. After I realized I had. And then something about getting captured changed that. Changed what happened between us and it never came back. I thought it might be that you fucked me- That night on the sawhorse I thought that had done something, changed how I felt about you but I saw your memory, I remember that now and I loved you more than ev-”

                “ _STOP._ ” Severus barked, finally able to cut Harry off. He had lost his tongue for a moment, “Just… Go. You don’t remember everything. And I do. Harry,” Maybe if he licked his lips. Gulped like a child. Put on that innocent and earnest expression. Maybe those things would make him brave. But he couldn’t do any of that because he was Severus _fucking_ Snape, “If that… If balance is the goal of this mark it will never come off. If our actions in the past are placed on scales and weighed I will never- _never_ be found equal to you.” He shook his head, “And so you can’t fuck me. You can’t take me out to lunches. You can’t _love_ me and knowing exactly why won’t change any of that.”

                They made eye contact. Severus met those electric emerald eyes. Those damn eyes.

                And then they changed. Something took over Harry and he saw it, Severus saw the moment of fissure, “You don’t fucking know me, Severus.”

                He didn’t respond. This Harry wasn’t the one he knew, that was true. This one threatened to fuck him because he got drunk in his living room. This Harry wrenched his shoulder out of joint. This Harry wasn’t stable, “I must see Poppy before the lunch hour is over.” Severus offered it as an olive branch. Let’s end this for now.

                Harry shook his head, and with that expression on his face Severus _knew_ what he was thinking. Harry’s hand on Severus’s tightened, and the boy brought his other hand to the taller man’s injured shoulder. Gently. But immobilizing. He wouldn’t have _imagined_ the thought from Harry, and his Harry would never have thought it.

                Minerva wouldn’t hire him back if she knew Harry had hurt Severus like this.

                “Humerus Reducere,” Severus whispered, “I’ll… I may not stay… If I black out it will only be two minutes or so. If the spell fails- It can sometimes, please engage in the liberty of trying again while I am unconscious.”

                Harry nodded, and Severus saw him reach for his wand. That was a relief because he knew the boy frequently applied wandless magic, but this spell in particular called for precision, “ _Humerus Reducere,”_

                               

 

                Severus came to having been placed in his wingback at his desk. The castle must have granted Harry permission in once Severus had been removed from the room. He sat up, wincing at the pangs of pain in his shoulder, he glanced at the clock. Five minutes until the bell, and students would finish lunch and start filtering in. There may be some out there already, the door between his office and the classroom had been mercifully shut.

                He often made a display of swatting the door open the moment class was to begin. Today would be one of those days. Severus stood, walking with his perfected glide over to his personal potions stores as not to jar his shoulder. None of these had labels so the students wouldn’t know what to steal, but he knew his patented bubbling purple brew.

                This painkiller had gotten him through the war, and it went amazingly with a shot of vodka. He removed the cork and settled for downing it without his usual chaser. He thought a moment and then tossed back a Pepper-up as well, might as well try not to eviscerate the first years.

 

 

                After class was over, Severus felt it was time to get some grading done. His feet, however, felt it was time to start marching up to the Headmistress’s office. Might as well get this over with, Severus folded to the inevitability of it all.

                “Calico,” He snapped at the Griffon statue. He had been to Minerva’s office three times in the three years since she took over as Headmistress and now twice in one day. This wouldn’t seem suspicious at all.

                He ascended the staircase the golden statue obscured, and popped again into McGonagall’s cat sanctuary. It was dark now, and the place had a comforting warm glow from the fireplace, “Oh Severus, such a delight to see you again. Tea?” she raised her wand, Severus felt nearly menaced by her platitude.

                “No Minerva the flowery brew from this morning is still haunting my sinuses.” He drawled, and earned a small chuckle from the old Witch.

                “Then how can I help you?” she asked. Minerva was sitting in her overstuffed chair again. A large book was on her lap, and a striped orange cat lounged languidly on the back of her chair, overlooking her reading with a lazy yellow eye.

                “I fear I was ambiguous regarding young Mr. P-Harry earlier this morning.” Severus said plainly. Part of him wanted to test this, see how close he could get to disobeying. Another, probably larger part of him just wanted this over with.

                “Severus,” Minerva looked him up and down, “I assure you, even if you had said whole heartedly he should stay, with his admissions and your own I don’t think it’s heal-”

“No.” Severus ground out, cutting her off, “He can stay.” His hand came up next to him, he stared at the mark, these weren’t his words, he was finally truly being compelled, fuck. FUCK. “I need to finish my business with him. Having him here is helping me. Helping us, move past this.”

                Minerva looked him over, not quite suspicious but not quite satisfied, “Severus I don’t know… He’s young. Still damaged from the war, if he has a fixation on you and this habit of invading your personal space and… Casting spells on you that you don’t desire. Showing up whenever he pleases. Physically assaulting you I don’t see how-”

                “We have to finish it,” Severus said, no longer fighting the compulsion of the mark, fitting himself into it’s narrative, letting his mouth say whatever it would. He could sense veins of truth in it. If he were to construct an argument for the boy staying this would be it. But he wanted to hide from it, he wanted it to be over, “I… I haven’t felt able to revisit any of these horrors. Without him I don’t feel I ever will.”

                Minerva tipped her head, “But do you want to, Severus?”

                Severus let his hand drop, “Minerva. I can’t handle the guilt of him leaving on my account. I’m sure once we settle… Whatever this is between us, we will both be no worse for wear. He wants this.”

                “What does he want?” Minerva had tactfully remained at the fringes of the actual interpersonal issue between Severus and Harry, if wasn’t her business and all of them knew it.

                “He wants my memories of the night he was captured at Malfoy Manor.” Severus said plainly, “And I suppose… I suppose it’s also pertinent to say that I don’t want him to have them.”

                She quirked her eyebrow and remained silent.

                “It is for us to sort out, Minerva.” Severus said with a finality, “The students adore him. He’s an obvious choice for his position. I…” He had to swallow, “I want him here. He stays.”

                He rounded out with a flourish and descended the staircase.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Even Though

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHUPS Sorry I missed the sunday update I like... Forgot it was Sunday?
> 
> Anyhoo! Next chapter should be the last chapter so enjoy :)

               

                The next morning, Severus received an Owl at breakfast. The great white beast didn’t leave, so he opened the rolled parchment at the table.

                _Severus,_

_Thank you for standing up for me. Thank you for all of this. Do you think you’re up for a meeting tonight or this weekend? We can postpone if that’s what you’d like, I know you have your post-degree classes on some weekends. I’ll move my schedule around whatever works for you._

_Thanks again,_

_-Harry_

Severus flipped the page over and produced a quill from his robe sleeve.

                _Oh dearest Harry mine,_

_I simply cannot express how unnecessary your thanks are, for it was wholly my own pleasure to do as you magically compelled. Why, as your blood magic ran through my veins to take over my mouth and mental faculties, I nearly wept with the graciousness I felt towards your plight here at Hogwarts. To say you’re welcome is not enough, for the pleasure was sincerely all mine. And as for your delicate inquiries into my schedule, why young Harry please make yourself at home anywhere in my day, for it doesn’t actually matter what I desire, you will take what you will._

_Don’t ever send me a letter in the great hall with your signature ivory beast again. It’s a headache I don’t need. You could just talk to me at breakfast if you dragged your worthless mop out of bed at a reasonable hour._

_Go fuck yourself. If I want another fucking torture session I’ll inquire as to your schedule._

_With all the reverential, undying love in the world,_

_-Professor Snape_

Finishing with an angry flourish, he threw the parchment at the beast, and she seemed to roll her eyes at him. With the dutiful nature of a well-trained magical Owl, she picked up the parchment and flew off through the ceiling up to her Master’s tower. She must be fond of the boy, for owls were usually very bristly about the indignity of having to carry a message in their beaks.

                 He was feeling moody and full of spite, what a wonderful way to handle a double Ravenclaw first thing in the morning.

 

                Severus returned from his classes and detentions very late on Friday night. He had not been feeling charitable and had kept the troublesome third years scraping cauldrons until after ten. If he was being honest, he knew being alone was when Harry would come for him. He knew that letter he wrote back earlier in the morning would be taken as a fucking _challenge._ Harry was a Gryffindor, after all. Severus ignored the voice inside his head that was begging the question of if he knew that, then why on earth did he write it?

                He went to his rooms and took off his robe, hanging it in his armoire. He glanced at the compelling red mark on his hand. It was beginning to tingle.

                The boy had not yet used the mark for the intended purpose; to draw him back to that place and time. Severus was almost curious about how that would happen. He had a growing suspicion it began with a tingle.

                The tingle turned into a shot, a punch, Severus fell to his knees in front of the armoire, a debilitating blow right to his temple and into his mind took over as he was sucked up by a legilimens, and transported.

 

                “Ah, Severus. I see you’ve broken in our new toy.” Lucius’s voice cut into him from behind, and Severus swirled with his younger self to look at the man.

                It was disorienting, to be right back here. Spinning. Severus was spinning, even his self-projection in this memory was on his knees; staggered. Harry of the past was tied down to the sawhorse, past Severus’s still half—hard cock was out, and a trail of come was leaking from the boy’s hole. It looked the perfect scene, they had created their perfect deception. Now Severus needed to get out, and get word to Dumbledore’s Army, or whatever ridiculous thing Harry’s ragtag group were calling themselves now, “Thank you for allowing the time. You know I can be a bit private in these manners.”

                “You can be an exhibitionist with the best of them when you put in a bit of effort,” Lucius smiled at him. He was so fucking handsome. Thick arms, a graceful figure, wearing a cloak with a stunning golden brocade. He always made Severus feel himself a raven compared to a peacock.

                Harry of today appeared standing next to him, looking at Lucius as Severus’s younger self was, “I never really thought he was handsome.”

                “Then you’re blind.” Severus said, regaining his composure, rising to his feet and crossing his arms.

                “I was young. He was a caricature. So were you. It took me a lot of time and hormones staring at your beak to get an itch.” Harry chuckled at himself. Severus bristled.

                “We needn’t talk for this.”

                “I’m in the sitting room. Yours. Now. I. I want to talk.” Harry muttered, looking away from the scene, as Lucius brought a switch down on his younger doppelganger’s thigh and drew blood on the first strike, “I… I’m there.”

                Harry released the memory, and Severus was left dizzied and disoriented, still on his knees in his bedroom. He stared to the door. Harry was behind that door.

                He didn’t want to go over to it. He didn’t want to go through it. Severus wanted to do what he’d _been_ doing for the past three years and just… Go to bed. Because it was late. Gulp down his draught of Dreamless Sleep, wake up, handle all his responsibilities and then go the fuck to sleep again.

                Severus had gone three years on auto pilot, and they’d been fantastic. He hadn’t felt that yearn to be with another person, to have someone to obey, or betray, he hadn’t felt those machinations on others. He’d been isolated and quiet and whole. Severus wagered he could live a long and happy life like that. No young Harry Potters banging on his door. He was done with the excitement, he was done with the passion and the heart-pounding and the desires.

                And he wouldn’t think of the guilt. Or his responsibilities. He had been just one set of piercing emerald eyes away from being free. Free to enjoy life’s small pleasures until he finally got to just fucking die. His story was over. He desperately needed this story to be over.

                But it wasn’t. The next chapter sat in his fucking living room. It promised to be a dismal end. He’d already had his first, second and third act. He’d completed his redemption arc. Nowhere he could end was better than where he was now.

                Severus took a steadying breath. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that Severus was complacent here. It didn’t matter that he never wanted to see the boy again, that he couldn’t _handle_ the consequences of where Severus Snape had left Harry Potter.

                It was time to end it. Clinging to normalcy was proving a fool’s errand against the ripping tide of the emerald eyed boy.

                He swung open the door to his living room, “I’m not making you tea.”

                “We’ve had enough tea.” Harry responded quickly, and in time.

                Harry looked especially small on Severus’s couch. He looked as exhausted as Severus felt, “Stop looking so pitiful.”

                “Can’t help it, Severus. I’m pitiful.”

                “Put on an acceptable façade then. I won’t fall into the sympathy trap that I assume is the main mechanism of your friendships.” Severus met seethed, but Harry wouldn’t bite yet.

                “Can you…” Harry stopped trailing off, still very much avoiding eye contact.

                “What?”

                “This is hard for me,” Harry said, “I keep thinking I’ll get back to my baseline. After the first memory we viewed I felt great. Like I was really gonna do this and fix myself and I’d be okay. Then we viewed the second memory.” He stopped to look down at his thumbs, moping like a child, “And that was a good memory. I thought it was.”

                “Do _not-_ ” Harry’s eyes were welling with tears. Severus would not have it, “I tire of your moods, of your manipulations. Are you here to continue or not?”

                “I’m really not trying to manipulate you.” Harry was almost whispering, “But I don’t… I don’t know what I’m doing.” He looked up with those eyes, big and bright and far too green, “You… You don’t think this will help me? Truly, Severus? Can you just be _nice_ to me for just a little bit? Can we just _talk?_ ”

                Severus felt rooted to his chair. Trapped. He said nothing.

                Harry crumbled even further in on himself. Fuck, Severus wished he had in fact offered to make some tea. Harry wouldn’t be able to curl up like that if he was holding a fucking teacup, “I just don’t know what happened, I don’t. I’ve been trying s-so hard. I have two therapists, I t-talk with m-my friends all the time,” the crying was choking him off, well and true sobs, this could get ugly, “I’ve read every fucking b-book I’m on like a fistful of m-meds and I c-can’t- I can’t-” he trailed off, before almost lashing back to look at Severus, “You’ve seen it! You’ve seen how I am! You’ve gotten the worst of it! Is this just PTSD and this just what it _is_ and everyone is just fucking dealing with it better than I am?”

                Severus tapped a finger on the arm of his chair, thinking, “…The students hold you beloved. You must not be as moody and disjointed as I was, during the war.”

                Harry made a rather insulting noise that agreed with Severus. A noise that communicated inherent obviousness in what Severus had said. Brat.

                Severus felt a fresh wave of guilt wash over him. Merlin’s beard so it was back to feelings. It seemed to come from nowhere, but he knew it wasn’t fair to assign it no origin. The boy was describing something he had once felt. Something he had been cursed with. Something he had- “Harry.”

                Harry blinked up at him, eyes losing tears in freeform now, “Oh I’m sorry you were a great profes-”

                “I need to show you something, so that you can understand. I’m afraid my memory of that night won’t help you without context.” Severus felt something in him relax, deflate. This was it. It was time. This would happen, he would tell the boy the truth and it would be less painful than watching him sob in Severus’s sitting room, he would let go of his three precious years of complacency, “It’s the night I took the Dark Mark.”

                Harry locked eyes with Severus, nodding, “Okay,” he trusted Severus too easily, he was an idiot boy still, “Do you want a drink? Or maybe tea?”

                “Get on with it.”

                “ _Legilimens-_ ”

 

They dove into Severus’s memory, back to a time when Severus was younger than Harry was now. Harry stood by Severus as they viewed his younger self in the center of a dusty entry way. The house they were in looked opulent, but forgotten. There was a line of dark figures against the walls, and a man coming down a staircase to meet the memory, to meet the younger Severus where he stood, just inside the door.

                Lucius Malfoy and another very respectable looking young wizard were standing on either side of a young Severus Snape. They were all wearing opulent black wizarding robes, and clearly Severus’s had been borrowed from Lucius, they didn’t fit snugly on his gangly frame. He wasn’t filled out as well as the perfect purebred next to him.

                He heard Harry gasp slightly as The Dark Lord came into the light. Please, please have the boy hold his tongue until the memory was over.

Severus was forced to his knees, in front of The Dark Lord. _Yes._ He watched himself with a sick pit in his stomach. He could see his teenaged form shaking with anticipation, the young body was wretched with desire. He could hardly remember how that had felt, it had been unimaginably divine to be forced to his feet in front of his Master the first time.

                “Eramus Servientes Degradarium,” The Dark Lord spoke, he was handsome. His eyes were an unusual and compelling shade of red. His skin was eerily pale, and his thoughts seemed to swirl under his pallor somehow, like you know he was thinking but you couldn’t comprehend how. Severus was in awe, this was the man who could handle him, one he could serve, “Now that is… Quite the servant to have.”

                “Yes, Master.” Severus fought the compulsion to bow his head, in the presence of such power it was difficult, but he didn’t want to presume, “May I bow my head?”

                A wry smile crossed The Dark Lord’s face, “It would be cruel not to let you, right Severus?”

                Severus folded forward, letting his forehead touch the floor in front of the man standing before him, “I’m not worthy of you. My mother, she was a pureblood but…”

                “Ah yes, how you came by your curse,” The Dark Lord’s boots appeared right before his nose as it was trained to the ground, “She was excommunicated for falling to marry a muggle.”

                “Yes. The Prince line carries the Degradarium for those that defect, My Lord.”

                “So no mudblood offspring can pop up and challenge the main house. It’s a very ingenious spell for cutting out dissidence and creating pureblood unity. In our new world I do hope to see it used more and more. Stand, Severus.”

                Severus pulled himself up. He had hit one final growth spurt after graduation from Hogwarts, and he hated that he met The Dark Lord’s eyes at level, “The Prince line purity died with my mother.”

                “So you have no House to serve,” The Dark Lord continued for him, “So you think you can appeal to me to take on a half-blood?” his hand reached out, ghosting on Severus’s cheek.

                “No one would serve you better, My Lord.” Severus said, swallowing. Even ganglier in his youth, his adam’s apple bobbed, “No one _could_ serve you better. I was born to serve a powerful Wizard. You are the most powerful, My Lord. Please take me.”

                The Dark Lord seemed very pleased to be begged to take a servant. He looked around at the shadowy figured witnessing, “My followers,” he addressed them, “Once, we Wizards knew how to handle the desecration of our lineage. We once held ourselves responsible.” He looked back at Severus, “Put your head down again, boy.”

                Severus obeyed gratefully, falling fully to the ground and touching his head to the floor, “Yes, Master.”

                “So you see,” The Dark Lord clasped his hands behind his back, looking much a professor, “When Witches and Wizards defected and went against a set of rules by which the bloodline was to abide, there were fitting consequences. After she fucked a filthy Muggle, that Prince bitch simply couldn’t have a son with grand ambitions. He can’t bear the Prince name, and he can’t weasel himself back into the line and claim a Purebred lineage. He is cursed with subjugation. He is cursed with submission. Obedience. Degradation. He is blessed to be able to repent for his mother’s sins. When Prince blood was diluted, the proper price was paid.”

                 The murmuring from the figures lining the walls seemed approving.

                “We’ve lost those old spells.” The Dark Lord mused, “Locked away from us. Our birthrights. Burned and banished because the current administration feels that we shouldn’t be able to access our history, because it’s a history-no-a _truth_ with which they do not agree.”

                The murmuring was louder this time, more agreeable.

                “ _This_ should be what every filthy half-blood is reduced to.” The Dark Lord delivered a sharp kick to the side of young Severus’s head, and the young man cried out, before resuming his position, forehead to the floor, bowing deeply, “You want to serve me? Look up. Beg.”

                Severus lifted his head immediately, his eyebrow was cut and leaking blood down into his eye, he didn’t seem to care, “Please, My Lord. Please be my Master. Please let me serve you. I could make you the best servant, I would do anything for you My Lord.”

                “Anything?” Voldemort asked, “That’s true, isn’t it? Once you Degradares imprint on a wizard you do _anything_ they ask, if I’m not mistaken. Much like a house elf?” chuckles from the gallery.

                “I only want to please you. My friends, they told me about you, what you could do for me, how you’re a strong and fearless Master. Please, I would serve you as no other has.” His voice broke when he said ‘serve’, it hadn’t yet settled into his full baritone, he was still so fucking young. He was manic to fill this hole inside him, desperate to feel at peace for even a moment, without the curse trying to yank him down into submission.

                He wanted to _submit_. He wanted it to be okay. He just wanted to obey the curse, and to give himself over to someone deemed worthy. He couldn’t go pledge himself back to the Prince line, they were all gone. He’d tried to give himself to Lily when he was a boy and she was kind to him, but the curse rejected her. She was muggleborn, poor, and earnest. Severus hadn’t thought it would work but he had tried none the less because she had such a wealth of raw power he had a shred of hope. After they had their falling out, he tried again with Lucius. He seemed perfect. He was pureblood, strong, rich, and utterly uninterested in holding that kind of responsibility over Severus.

                They had played at it, for a time. Severus wanted to submit to him, Severus wanted Lucius to want him. Lucius had decided it would be unfair of him to deprive his Master of such a servant, and they had agreed to take Severus to the Dark Lord.

                Here he would find a Master who wanted a servant. Here Severus could fulfill his purpose. He could be free to serve, and be rewarded for his service. The young Severus wanted this so bad he could feel his bones ache for just hoping his Master would accept him, use him, fulfill his purpose.

                “Leave us.” The Dark Lord said, eyes trained on young Severus. The room cracked loudly as the Death Eaters disapparated.

                The two of them were alone in the hall, there was a terrified silence from Severus.

                “If I asked you to suck my cock?” Voldemort asked out of the silence.

                “Of course, My Lord. Please allow me to pleasure you.” Severus remembered being proud his voice hadn’t broken again, he had tried to keep it deep. It wasn’t a man’s voice quite yet. He had the depth but not the control.

                “On your knees. Look up at me. If I asked you to go kill that shitstain muggle father of yours?”

                “I already have,” Severus said eagerly, rising to his knees in front of his Dark Lord, “A poison, in his drink. It finished off his liver.”

                “Very good,” Voldemort smiled down at him, and Severus felt his heart bloom, “If I asked you to kill yourself, and rid us all of your filthy blood?”

                Young Severus’s blooming heart plummeted, and he felt his eyes start to water, “I… I don’t want to die. I can be a useful servant to you. I beg you- I beg you please My Lord, please use me.” A tear ran from an eye, he had forgotten to train his voice low and respectful, he begged like a child, like a lost boy, “I just- I just want to be used. If you… I can always die later. Please.”

                The Dark Lord slapped him across the face, strong enough to send him down. Severus stayed down, letting himself have an undignified, pitiful sniff, “Try again, half-blood. If I asked you to kill yourself?”

                “I would rather die for you, than live without you, My Lord.” Severus said, not bringing his head up.

                “Much better.” The Dark Lord retrained his frozen smile, “Now Severus, of course you’re not going to have the privileges of a real wizard-”

                Severus almost twitched, and frantically yanked them out of the memory, this next part wasn’t important in the slightest. Extra humiliating and not important. It was just the Dark Lord deciding how best to break in his new toy, and probably not something Harry needed to hear or see right now. It had been horrible, and wonderful, and how much he enjoyed how the Dark Lord had taken him and branded him that night would be secrets he would keep. Harry had been eerily silent for the whole memory.

                Severus let his long fingers drum on the arm of his chair again, “I eventually developed a set of potions that lessened the effects of the curse in my blood. It became no longer physically compelling. I was able to have more choice over my Masters-”

                Harry nodded, “Yeah. I know.”

                You could have heard a pin drop. Severus wasn’t quite sure he was breathing, “ _What?_ ”

                “You- You could have watched my memory. The whole one. Of the night I fucked you.” The boy shrugged, “You told me that. We fucked until four in the morning you told me your fucking life story, Severus.”

                Severus stood sharply, and went over to his fucking drink cart. This was all the drink cart’s fault. This was why he didn’t drink any more. He unironically uncorked a bottle of red wine he’d been saving for grading the more headache-inducing essay stack he had accrued, “ _That_ seems unlikely.”

                “Well I didn’t know all that.” Harry said flippantly, “I didn’t know that it was a really big deal-but you told me- You told me I had to own you.” Excellent now the boy was blushing, Severus was beginning to miss the blubbering, “That you had a curse, you told me that you had to have a Master. That if I was going to please you I had to…” He trailed off, blushing more furiously, “I mean you had a lot of ideas about how best to go about it. I honestly just thought you were talking about the Dark Mark. Or like. I guess I also maybe thought you were being metaphorical.”

                Severus thought he may actually die on the spot of humiliation, “That is my most closely guarded personal secret. I have told only my closest friends and… You. Apparently.”

                “Well your secret was safe with me because I didn’t really figure that out, did I? Pour me a glass, have mercy.” At least Harry didn’t seem in any mood to cry again. He seemed to be coming around to enjoying this horrific conversation. “You said it got worse when you were… Erm, with someone. You had potions that like stopped it’s magic in your bloodstream but when you were… Intimate, it didn’t have much effect on… Those urges. You weren’t really speaking too clearly at the time. I thought the curse you were talking about was the Dark Mark. I thought Death Eaters were just really fucked up. Which they were. That assumption held out so I’m not an idiot for making it.”

                Severus hated when Harry chopped up his sentences like that, and meandered through the bloody remains. He hated how he always had one more thing to say. He hated his spiky hair and his cupid’s bow mouth and those fucking stunning green eyes.

                He hated how those delicate hands had grabbed him. He hated how much power that muscular little body managed to hold. He hated how every time he had measured up against Harry, the boy had held easy victory over him.

                He hated how easily Harry had given him everything he wanted that night, after decades of fighting his nature, “That’s not who I am anymore.” He said more to himself than Harry. It tasted like an admission.

                “I didn’t say it was,” Harry replied, “I didn’t… I wasn’t here to talk about that. I didn’t know it was like-A bloodline curse. None of that matters to me, Severus.”

                “You…” Severus moved away from the drink cart, feeling overwhelmed. He handed Harry his wine. He didn’t feel the pang of pleasure of serving the boy. He didn’t feel the curse. _That isn’t who I am any more._

Harry took a sip of the red, “I mean I understand better now,” He glanced up at Severus, “I felt it though, I knew something was…” He took a sip, “I’m glad it was you first, that night in Malfoy Manor. I was glad you were there because I knew you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. I knew you… Couldn’t. But I mean. I hadn’t even thought about it since that one night… Thing. The mark- I wasn’t trying to draw on that curse or anything.”

                “Shut up.” Severus took a long draught of his own glass, “Shut up now.”

                Harry stared at his wine. “Thank you for showing me that, though.” He took a sip, and fidgeted before continuing, “Why did you show it to me?”

                Severus swirled his wine in his glass, quiet after the question for a while, “I wanted you to understand.”

                “Understand?”

                “Yes.” Snapped Severus, “Was that part unclear?” he took a breath, another sip of wine, and steadied himself, this had to fucking happen, and it had to happen tonight, “Finish your glass. After we view the memory I’m sure nausea will take over any thirst.”

                Harry swilled and sipped, “I don’t… Severus. I don’t see why you’re having trouble helping me with this.”

                Severus just snorted.

                “I mean, I know that you helped them torture me. I’ve been well at peace with that for- Forever! I had figured that part out by the time I saved you from Nagini’s bite! My army told me that it was you who had passed on my coordinates, given them a portkey, caused the distraction that you did, Merlin Snape you rescued me almost single-handedly and I know you value your privacy but this seems extreme! You know I’m hurting you know that I’m having trouble and I just need a little help.” He finished weaker than he started, nursing his wine glass again.

                Severus smirked, “It must be very nice to be you.”

                Harry rolled his eyes, “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

                “It means I think you’ll kill me. When you view the entire memory.” Severus took a deep gulp and wished he was drunk. He wished he was hammered. He had stronger stuff but none of it would work fast enough. Severus craved oblivion over this but he didn’t deserve it, “And I’m not given to poorly projecting conversational outcomes. I was a _good_ spy.”

                Harry just stared at him, eyes wide, taking the occasional drink.

                Severus continued, “I want to be you. Sitting where you are now, and knowing only what you know. That’s a better thing to be. You live in a universe infinitely better than mine. Sure you’re fucking damned.” A sip, so this was it, no going back, “I know because I damned you. But at least you get to be ignorant. I know you’ll hate knowing more than you hate not knowing.”

                “I can’t handle these fucking riddles, Severus.” Harry put down his wine, “And I can’t handle _you,_ being like _this._ What is wrong with you? You’ve been just-just melancholy and, like, _dead_ since I’ve got back. You used to yell, to fly off the handle, you used to seem like you could care. Now just little glimpses, here and there of a real fucking person. All you do is avoid me, and you’ve never been a coward before.”

                “I let you take me out to lunch.” Severus said indignantly. Why had he just let that happen? The boy was here with the express intent to violate his mind against his wishes. “It was easier to say yes than no.”

                “And it was _easier_ to let me get sacked than to deal with me.”

                “Why yes I believe we’ve found my main motivation then, as it turns out I don’t want to spend my whole life doing battle, what a _coward_ I’ve become.” Severus seethed.

                Harry lunged forward, and pressed his mouth to Severus’s again.

 There was only the sound of the fire crackling in the hearth. Severus felt a vile mixture of desire, shame, and some well and true vintage self-loathing. He opened his mouth, of course he did, and the boy’s tongue slithered inside.

                They both tasted of wine and regrettable conversation. Harry was burning up, his heat pressed stiflingly against Severus. At some point the older man’s hands had gotten tangled in the boy’s hair, as Harry pushed him back into his chair, his legs had spread to welcome the young firm body. Harry fit into him like he’d never left, like they were continuing that drunken fucking mistake over three years ago.

                Severus wrapped his legs around the crouching boy’s waist, bringing them together, their kiss was rolling tongues and open mouths, unable to stop for breath.

                Last night on earth, might as well make it count, “Fuck me, Harry.” He hissed into their kiss.

                _Even though that’s not who I am anymore._

 

 

 

 


	5. Non-Dominant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Took a while to get this one out, a little shorter than the others because I chopped off the ending to work a little more and just make it another chapter. Thanks for reading!

Harry moaned, “Only if you actually let me into your fucking bedroom.”

                Severus pushed Harry off of him and stood, latching a hand onto the boy’s shoulder and dragging him to the bedroom. It was a surprisingly meaty shoulder, the boy had filled out very nicely since school. The moment they crossed into the bedroom Severus reached under the hem of Harry’s horrible sweater and lifted it over his head, “I thought you’d be done with these awful garments by now.”

                “Are you saying you want me naked or are you saying I should burn the last of my cousins’ clothes?” Harry asked with a wolfish grin.

                “ _Yes.”_ Severus unhooked the boy’s trousers, and Harry agreeably stepped out.

                Harry stood gloriously naked in Severus’s bedroom. His skin was bronze. He was muscular and lean and somehow now more forgivably tiny than he had been those years ago. Harry would always be perilously petite, but he still had a man’s body now, “I like it when you look at me like that.” He said, noticing Severus’s admiring scrutiny.

                Severus brought his eyes up to Harry’s; emerald green, seeming to glow in the din of the room.

                “Divestio,” the word whispered off Harry’s lips, and in a whiplash flash Severus’s clothes were on a pile around his feet on the floor. Harry didn’t show his power frequently, but when he did Severus found it dizzying.

                Severus couldn’t claim the confidence of form that Harry had, but he didn’t feel ashamed. Harry wanted him, he could see that clearly in his shining emerald eyes. Harry felt desire for this body, this crooked, scarred, and skinny body; so Severus supposed that right now he was glad to have it.

                “You almost glow, you know,” Harry closed in on him and dragged Severus over to the four-poster. The younger man pushed on Severus’s chest and he let himself fall back, splayed over the duvet. Harry crawled on top of him and leaned into his ear, “You’ve got those long thin legs, I know how flexible they are too.”

                Severus withdrew a bit to look at Harry, really look at him and try to see- He had let Harry fuck him those years ago, and he was damn well going to do it again-there had to be a reason. He had found kindness in Lily, idolatry of Lucius Malfoy, reverence of The Dark Lord, and acceptance in Dumbledore. It couldn’t just be passion, just affection in an abstract. The people that he had let in, the people he had loved and cared about had always altered his life, he had always _followed_ them.

He didn’t feel the need to follow Harry Potter. He just wanted his hands to touch him. And he didn’t want Harry to change his life, but fuck all if some part of him didn’t enjoy having him in the castle. The part of him that wasn’t wary. The part of him that still felt curiosity and passion. In the end when he looked into those eyes he felt he knew the person they belonged to. For all their arguing and verbal sniping, he felt like Harry understood him, and he understood Harry. Every little piece of Harry annoyed him, and he held issue with every facet of his being, but when he put them all together they formed a figure with which he undeniably resonated. A figure that he desired despite himself.

                “I want you,” Severus stated, a deadpan confession as the younger man ground down into him, their cocks against each other both hot and hard, Severus glanced down and appreciated that glorious thing-Harry packed a nice cock. It was a dark ashen plum, and when it was hard it grew large enough for the entire head to pop out of the foreskin.  “I want- your cock in me.” The older man said in fits and starts as Harry kissed him again between breaths.

                “Severus,” Harry hissed the name, “I think about it all the time,” his hands trailed down over scars and jutting bone, “I think about how you begged for my cock, do it again.”

                “Please,” Severus winced at how he didn’t hesitate, well-trained from his birth to acquiesce, and too starved for choices he wanted to make to hold the decorum of hesitation, “Please fuck me. I… I thought of you.”

                “What did you think of me?” Harry jumped on Severus’s admission, taking their cocks in his hand and muttering a summoning, slickness entered the mix as he stroked them both, “Tell me.”

                Severus was too touch-starved, having this reckless hot body over his, stroking him, it was frying his brain. He worried if he tried to talk he’s just spit out the same chopped up sentences he abhorred the boy for using, “I-I think about it alone, how long and hard you fucked me. S-sometimes when I’m alone I’ll challenge myself, see how long I can fuck myself on a toy, try to get myself to how wrecked I was that night,” Harry’s hand dipped down below his cock, between his legs, fingers pressing against his hole, “Fuck, Harry, yes.”

                “It’s especially filthy when you say ‘fuck’, you know?” Harry said with a smile, “You were once my professor and all.” The young man moved lower.

                He hadn’t seen Harry since their first night together, before their night in the manor. He expected Harry would look past his scars, his wounds and his memories and he anticipated returning the favor. But when Harry had stood like a statue in his bedroom, his body had been perfect and unmarred. As their bodies rolled together he felt what he couldn’t see. The boy was riddled with scars and bumps and edges. Harry was wearing a glamor even here with Severus, in bed.

                He couldn’t worry on it too long, Harry lowered his mouth to latch onto Snape’s cock with a hungry passion, and Severus couldn’t maintain his train of thought. The unruly black hair bobbed up and down on his cock, slurping and humming his pleasure, it was divine, but not what Severus was here for, “Fuck me, Harry. Please. I’ve already begged.”

                Harry popped off his cock and looked up at him, mouth puffy and wet and glistening, pulled into his inappropriate House cup victory grin. The boy grabbed at his thighs, pushing at them, twisting, with magic or brute force Severus found himself on his front, on all fours on the bed. Harry’s mouth descended on his hole with an overwhelming exuberance. The hot slick sensations were too much right away, and he tried to squirm away but strong arms around his thighs kept him in place. He grappled with his bedspread to pull a pillow towards him and scream into the fabric, needing an outlet for the sensation.

                Finally the overstimulation wore off, and Severus found his screams turning to moans, and pushing back on the invading tongue lapping at and pushing inside his hole. He feels magic wordlessly tingle behind him and hears Harry slicking that fat cock behind him, he’s flipped back over-definitely magic this time he could _tell_ and meets Harry’s eyes.

                Harry looks terrifying. Severus can’t understand why, but something is wrong. Harry leans over him and lines up, hefting one slim leg up onto his shoulder and pushing inside. Severus feels his body give way despite his concern, he feels himself open to the boy and want more, his eyes close and he lets himself go to be taken by Harry.

                Harry stops, there’s a pause before a heave, and Severus hears a very wet sound from the bedspread beside him, “Oh bloody hell.” Severus’s eyes snap open to Harry leaning over him to the side, pale and shaking over a puddle of his own vomit, the liquid portion of which is travelling towards Severus on the bedspread with alarming speed, “OUT.” Severus pushes at the boys waist and disengages them, cocks both now limp, “Get off the bed let me call a house elf,” The older man swirled himself into his robe and went over to pull a bell string he had only used once or twice before.

                Harry wasn’t off the bed yet though, he was still on his hands and knees, heaving a bit and looking ragged.

                Severus sighed and went over to him as the house elf appeared, “Harry we need to let the elf clean this up, I don’t need this seeping through to the mattress.” The boy was non responsive, Severus resigned himself, “Come here.” He reached over and dragged at the boy’s shoulder, collecting the boy’s naked body into his arms with no small amount of effort. The Boy Who Lived may be perilously short but he may as well have been filled with lead.

                He carried Harry out to the sitting room and placed his body on the couch. The glamor was gone, the boy apparently had lost the mental faculty to maintain it. His old wounds glared at Severus in accusation. Harry’s eyes had started streaming tears. He was pale. He was wrecked.

                Severus huffed and covered the tattered body with a blanket, hands ghosting over the wounds that he knew with too vivid of memory. Cuts and whip marks forming rows and rows of indistinguishable lines on his thighs and hips, a twisted hole in his stomach, scarred into an angry knot. His chest looked healed though, probably starting the scar removal top-down and going slow to avoid magic toxicity. Severus quickly noticed that even though the scar was removed, about half of the left nipple wasn’t going to return. He could probably whip up a potion for such a thing if he really put his mind to it.

                Severus sat on the ground with his back against the couch. So much for that whole plan. But it very much confirmed his suspicions. Now he had to come to terms with what he had done to the boy. He glanced down at the mark on his hand, and he took a moment to appreciate the beauty of the arcane circle, “How are you feeling, Harry?”

                Harry didn’t respond. Severus glanced back to reaffirm that his eyes were in fact still open.

                Severus dragged his body up, “I have a set of potions for this. They will make you feel better. I know you’ll feel the need to disappear and sulk if I leave but things cannot be summoned from my personal potion storage for obvious reasons. I’ll be back in a moment.” Severus walked to the door of his chambers.

                “You’re going out like that?” Harry’s small voice came from the couch.

                Severus turned back to him for a moment and glanced down at himself, “We’re wizards, Harry.” And with a muttered incantation, the robe transformed into at least the appearance of his standard black buttoned robes, with some shoes to boot. He opened the door and swept down the corridor.

                He had destroyed most of these potions when he felt he no longer needed them, but only a fool wouldn’t even leave a prototype and backup around. He glided through the classroom where some students were actually taking the time to practice what he had taught them during the week, he nodded at them in acknowledgement then went to his secured trunk in the storage room.

                The bottle was green and the contents almost fluorescent. Even looking at the thing left a bad taste in his mouth.

               

                His robes returned to their original state when he entered his chambers again. Harry was sitting up now, staring blankly into the empty fireplace.

                Severus swept his wand towards the hearth and it crackled to life, heating the room, “Drink this.”

                Harry took the potion and knocked it back, swinging forward dramatically after he did so and sputtering, “Holy-hrug-Shit what the bloody-”

                Severus picked up Harry’s wine glass from earlier and poured him a good amount, “Here. Water won’t affect the taste.”

                Harry took a childish swig of the wine, coughing and making wretching sounds between further sips. Finally he calmed down, his color came back, he cracked half a smile, “That potion was one of your more flavorful concoctions.”

                Severus took his seat in the wingback and shrugged, “I must admit, I don’t often bother to improve the taste of my potions, but that one I promise I did try.”

                “I’m… sorry about that.” Harry got a little quieter. “I don’t know what happened.”

                “I do.” Severus said, staring at his own empty wine glass from earlier but deciding that, like most things, he didn’t deserve it, “I think it’s time to finish our project, Harry.”

                “I don’t…” Harry trailed off, “I would have rather fucked you.”

                Severus lifted an eyebrow at him, “So that’s your real end game here? Something as simple as a shag?”

                Harry shook his head, “You know how I feel about you, Severus. You have to. You’re fucking brilliant.”

                “Compliments,” Did Severus know how the boy felt? Did he care? He experienced another tiny moment of wondrous disassociation. What was this? What were they doing here? This was the time after, and all that Severus would accomplish was over and this glorious idiot should be out in the world doing new things- He clamped down on it. Not now. “I suppose I’m to think you fancy me in your own manipulative little way?”

                Harry looked devastated, “I wish you had returned my letters after the war.” He took another sip, his eyes glowed with that terrible moisture again, “I wish you hadn’t been hammered the first time, when I made my big pass. I wish that it had meant what I thought it had.” One single tear, “I wish I had handled this so much better.”

                “Idiot.” Severus sniped, “Wasting away your life wishing for ways to bugger your old Potions Professor. Your friends ought have talked some sense in to you. Or any of those therapists you claim to see.”

                “They all do get tired of hearing of you.” Harry smiled a lopsided smile, putting a crook in the wet stream from his earlier tears, “But you didn’t answer my letters. And you were hammered that time… When I thought we did something that meant something. And I got so excited after we viewed that first memory and it was clear that… That you did care about me. I couldn’t wait to see more and get this all sorted. I know you’re prickly I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.” Harry stopped talking. Severus knew the rest.

                “I’m not going to be sorry.” Severus said quietly, trying his best not to be needlessly cruel, “I care for you, Harry. But I am a man. Old enough to be your father. And you’re a fool for thinking that my allowing you to gift me with a night of decadence and pleasure when my life was so much pain was from a place of care or love. I was surviving. And-”

                “Please stop.” Harry said, a little brittle, “I know. I’ve figured that all out. I was seventeen and I had a big crush and- I don’t know. You said you loved me. I know you don’t remember because I’ve seen what shoddy bits of your memory you have. But I was seventeen. And you said you loved me. And I know that’s kind of a stupid thing, a little kid thing to cling to, but I’d like to. I’d like to keep that memory. Just the way it is.”

                Severus stared at Harry. Silent. There was no way through this. He had this loving, loyal, _powerful_ young wizard totally under his control, this whole time. Something in his youth he would have relished, but now he was too many sins in to take advantage of this. This was a prize he didn’t earn. He held out his curse-marked hand, “Let’s finish it, Harry.”

                Harry stared at the outstretched hand. And then back at Severus. His gaze felt like a blow.

                “When we do this… We stand silently. We only watch. I can’t…” Severus looked away, “I can’t do it if you have questions. I can’t give you that much.”

                Harry nodded, “Are you ready?” Severus brought his gaze back to those damn green eyes and nodded, “ _Legilimens.”_

 

 

                Severus tried his best not to burst back into the torture room. But as he entered and took stock, his heart stood still. Harry was laying there in the center. They had taken him off the sawhorse eventually, they must have. Or the thing had been destroyed out from under him. Sections of the skin on his  chest had been flayed, Severus could see fatty tissue and muscle fiber through pooling blood, despite clotting spells.

                His arms were bound behind his back, and it looked like both shoulders were out of joint. His eyes were swollen, and everywhere he had a sharp bone on his face; his eye sockets, cheek bones, the bridge of his nose, he had a cut where a blow had broken the flesh. Mouth open, Severus could see the boy had lost teeth.

                “Oh Severus, thank goodness you’re back I’m not sure how much he’s got left in him.” Yuelle said from a wall along the corner, “Lucius left, he doesn’t like it once it starts getting pulpy.”

                Lucius being here had been Severus’s assurance Harry wasn’t going to die. Lucius was a fucking pussy. The decadent man was a sadist but within _reason_. This horror show was Craig and Yuelle circling their prey. Making the final attack.

                This was the end.

                “The Dark Lord would like a total desecration.” Craig was sharpening a knife by hand, making a ritual out of it instead of using magic, “We’ve got word they’ll be staging quite the little rescue. We’ll leave him here for his little friends to mourn, but we’ve got to make sure they know how their savior _suffered.”_

“It doesn’t seem he can take too much more,” Severus said, how did they know? Did they have an informant in Dumbledore’s Army? Not a moment after he had planned the rescue they knew within the minute when they’d be here. Was he found out as well? Taking a step closer despite all the new wounds he saw on Harry’s small frame as he neared he asked, “How much time do we have left?”

                “Mmmm, I’d say we should start winding down here in a half hour.” Yuelle said, “The Dark Lord said they would be about an hour, and we want him still warm when they find him.” A devilish smirk crossed the Death Eater’s face, “Craig and I have decided we’re gonna cut off his cock and shove it in his mouth for when they find him. Not very creative but always a solid play. Any better ideas, Severus?”

                “I’ll get back to you.” Severus said, wracking his mind, “Sadly my school duties made me miss most of the fun. I know I’m coming in for dessert, but if I could just have a few moments with what’s left of him before the final event?”

                Craig and Yuelle glanced at each other, “Fucking him ain’t really fun any more,” Yuelle shrugged, “After a while you always gotta move on to something more _stimulating_.”

                Severus somehow managed to work his face into a smirk. How the hell had he done that? What kind of man did that make him? “Trust me when I say that I have something plenty stimulating in mind, and that I’ll also save the last for you. As a favor, Yuelle.”

                Yuelle shrugged and went to the door, “I could use another smoke. Lucius is vicious about doing it in his house. Craig?”

                Craig clearly did not want to leave, but she nodded anyway, “I could use a smoke while I sharpen my knife.”

                Apparation- A portkey charm-Shrinking spell – Severus’s mind was racing. Nothing would work. This manor had an anti-apparation ward on it, The Dark Lord only lowered it for his followers to come when called. Severus could shrink Harry and make a run for it, on foot, but the House Elves would tell Lucius almost immediately.

                He might be able to take on only Lucius in a duel, but if others came to his aid…

                “S’veus” Harry’s mangled form made a noise that could be considered Severus’s name.

                “Harry,” Severus swooped down to him, untying his arms from behind his back and slowly, gently, cradling the broken form in his arms, “Harry, can you hear me?”

                Harry’s mouth moved but almost no sound came out, squeaks and hisses, voice raw from screams. Severus lowered his ear to Harry’s mouth and heard him repeat, so faintly, “I like it when you say my name.”

                Severus let out one angry, choked sob, getting himself together well before he could fall apart, there wasn’t time for that now, “Harry, your friends are coming, I need to keep you alive until then,” he was trying to whisper but his voice was breaking, “The manor is full of Death Eaters, and house elves haunt every room. Help me, we have to figure out how to keep you alive until they get here.”  

                Severus was staring at Harry’s face, mangled and gory, as the boy cracked a small smile, “Sev…” He whispered, “Sev I’m not going to make it. It’s okay.”

                Severus felt the bottom drop out of his world, “Shut _up,_ you little imbecile you’re going to make it because without you we’re _lost,_ do you hear me? This isn’t about your pain, this isn’t about you, without you the Dark Lord will win this war, so _buck up._ ”

                Harry let out a laugh that dissolved into coughing, “I’m glad you’re here.” He whispered shakily, “I wasn’t… I wasn’t ever going to make it,” Harry’s tiny little whisper couldn’t even fill the room, it was for Severus alone, “I knew that. Once I die, he can die.” Somewhere beneath swollen flesh and running blood two bright emerald eyes managed to train back on him, “You… You can…”

                “Shut up!” Severus snapped, moving on to take stock of Harry’s body. Should he even bother casting the reduction on his torn out shoulder joints? It would only cause the boy more pain and, he held Harry, assessing him, his hand encountered a deep wound in his midriff, “How… What did they stab you with? How deep is this?”

                Harry relaxed against him, cradled against Severus, bloodying his robes, “You’re warm. Thank you.”

                “ _Materixus_ ,” Severus muttered, causing a list of curses used to appear in front of them, showing the Borehole hex that would kill the boy in minutes if nothing else came along first. Severus wanted to scream. The Borehole was actually a magical fungus that was set upon an existing wound and would slowly eat through to the other side of where it was cast, he took his potions bag out of his pocket and enlarged it, not letting go of the arm clutching Harry to him to rifle through it looking for something that had fungicidal properties.

                He found something sufficiently green and bubbling and poured it over the wound, Harry didn’t even flinch, “Are you- Harry stay awake come on-”

                Harry’s eyes rolled back open, “I love you, Sev. You can do it. You’ll win.”

                “I can’t.” Severus felt dampness on his face, tears had started rolling from his eyes, “I’m not-I can’t go against The Dark Lord. Not if you and Dumbledore are gone. We have to just figure this out I’m going to try to charm another portk-”

                “I know you can,” Harry wasn’t listening, his bloody hands twining in Severus’s buttons, “You’re brilliant.”

                And there. Severus saw himself come to the realization that life was leaving this boy. That Harry was right. And the decent thing to do would be to hold him as he died. To go on without him. But he couldn’t. Not with the Degredarium. He couldn’t disobey The Dark Lord if Harry and Dumbledore were both gone. The potions made him strong but not that strong.

                But Snape was a master Legilimens. The best in the world. And those green eyes were dying, staring right into his. Severus took his wand from his pocket, and sliced open his own palm.

                You couldn’t see it from the outside, Severus was just staring intensely down at Harry. But he remembered raking through his own mind, throwing every part of him he felt was a result of his bloodline curse into this boy. This was blood magic, mixing with legilimens to create some other horrible abomination. The blood in the room reacted, stirring, the blood running from Harry jerked and frothed in places, and the boy screamed with all that was left of his torn vocal chords.

                “Impressive Severus,” Craig’s voice from behind him made him startle, the connection faltered, Harry started writhing as the curse took over his blood, as even in his death throws he reacted to the _wrongness_ of what had just been done to him, shrieked with a ruined voice at the change, at becoming a vessel to die with the worst parts of Severus.

                “Very impressive.” Yuelle entered the room as well, and Severus staggered to his feet, forgetting about his dripping palm. His non-dominant hand. His past and present self mimicked each other as they held up the hand, staring at it for a moment before letting it drop. Harry’s curse-mark seal wasn’t ever going anywhere.

                He couldn’t take it. He heard footsteps coming to the door, Lucius? The Dark Lord? Dumbledore’s army come to make an early attempt? He couldn’t let any of them know what he had just done, no one could know. His wand was still clenched in his left hand, he felt raw and open and free and he was going to stay this way.

                Craig and Yuelle were congratulating Severus on how the boy who should have been dead was writhing and screeching horribly on the floor, they weren’t paying enough attention, they didn’t know what Severus had done but The Dark Lord, even Lucius could figure it out.

                He raised his wand, “AVADA KEDAVRA” and it wasn’t Yuelle or Craig he aimed at, the killing curse sped straight for Harry.

                It missed only because Yuelle had physically tackled him and glanced the blow, when the door swung open it was Lucius, not any savior, but the portkey that had been shrunk into Severus’s pocket was flung far.

                He was supposed to have placed it in the adjacent room after confirming Harry’s location, he had failed. This portkey could only get one person in at a time and they were supposed to have rallied in an empty room before the charge. Now they would march one by one to the slaughter at the hands of three death eaters.

                “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing? We’re not going to kill him with the curse!” Craig screeched at him.

                Severus grappled with Yuelle, taking aim over the larger man’s shoulder and striking again with the curse, but this time Craig blocked it with an Expelliarmus, “I GET TO END THIS!” Severus bellowed, swinging a good old fashioned hookpunch into Yuelle’s face and trying to right himself.

                “What the hell is going on?” Lucius attempted to yell over the situation but wasn’t a booming man by any measure, “Just let Severus finish the boy you sick fucks it doesn’t matter if there’s a cock in his mouth or not when they show up he clearly wants it the most.”

                Craig got up in Lucius’s face, “The Dark Lord _told_ us t-”

                “This isn’t about his orders it’s about your _perversions_ and if a wizard wants to kill with the killing curse who are we to stand-”

                And then the scene exploded.

 

Severus drew them out of the memory.  What none of them had seen was Hermione, sneaking manually into the manor. She had done it once before, after all. She had followed Severus, and she was equipped with a communication signal to the DA that she had activated once she saw Severus throw the Killing Curse, DA members had been silently filing in and taking cover, and chaos exploded in the room when they had the five members needed for the first wave. They had gotten Harry out.

They had saved Harry, despite Severus.

                “That’s why she started researching blood magic.” Was all Harry said.

                Severus considered for a moment, then nodded. Perhaps. He looked at the mark on his hand. Perhaps the clever witch had tried to deduce what Severus had done to Harry in that moment. Perhaps she had succeeded and pressed Harry to come confront him. She had been there, invisible influencing his life, right behind him.

                “What…” Harry started again and stopped.

                Severus said nothing. He felt nothing.

                “I’ve got to…” Harry looked around, “The…” he went into the bedroom, still naked, and emerged a few minutes later with his clothes on, “I’m… I’ll see you, okay?”

                Severus waved away his platitudes and kept sitting there, stewing.

                He stared at his wine glass. At his fireplace. Looking through each object in this room he loved until the fire crackled out, glowing. And then went dark.

                He had no idea how long he sat there, staring through the dark.

 

                Severus woke with the strange impression he had slept with his eyes open, because when there was a loud knock on his chamber door, he simply glanced at it, coming back from a half-hearted unconsciousness easily, still sitting straight up in his chair.

                His body was not as quick to rouse as his mind, however, and a horrible pain blossomed in his lower back when he tried to stand, one leg going entirely numb. Damn sciatic nerve. “ENTER.” He snapped to get the knocking to stop.

                He didn’t know what he expected; Minerva with a red letter? Azkaban officials with something very impressively stamped stating that it was time to come with them? None of that arrived to brighten his Sunday morning, just a bushy-haired girl who had now taken to wearing spectacles over her calculating chocolate brown eyes, “Professor Snape, so good to see you!” She was carrying a small satchel that looked like at full size it was an entire burlap sack stuffed with books.

                Severus managed to stand, not quite straight up. Damn sciatica. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

                Hermione cleared the wine glassed from the table, setting down her coin purse of books that began steadily growing to an even larger sack than Severus had anticipated, “You should brew some coffee.”

 

               

               

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

               

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment because it makes me happy even if it's shitty stuff about how many problems you have and stuff cuz. I can take it.
> 
> Updates will be every Sunday, looking at 4 or 5 chapters.


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